Winter Fire
by cuthalion
Summary: She doesn't know who she is. But she dreams of battlefields and heroes in an unknown universe. And the dreams are true... RUNNER UP MITHRIL AWARDS BEST NOVEL SERIAL 2005
1. Winter Night

1. **Winter Night  
**  
It is pitch dark, and cold. _So cold_.

I'm trembling horribly. A piercing wind cuts through my thin shirt, as chilling as if someone had poured a stream of icy water over me.

I can barely see at all. A thick mist seems to whirl around me, and there's a strange, droning sound in my ears. I recognize that my feet are bearing me forward, my steps stumbling and uncertain, but I don't know where I'm going. My knees feel as if they might buckle beneath me, and I reach out with both hands, searching desperately for something to hold on to. Finally I stop, shivering with fear, my breath coming in painful gasps.

My eyes clear a little, and there is water in front of me, the surface glittering with reflected lights, yellow and white. It must be night. Gradually I become aware of trees, bare flower borders, carefully laid paths. _A garden?_ But an empty garden, and very quiet. The only sound is a sort of constant hum in the background, which I cannot identify.

I dare a few more steps. There is frozen grass under my feet; it crunches faintly as if I were walking over bits of broken glass. I can see more clearly now.

_Where am I? And how did I get here?_

The silence ends suddenly. A roar of noise rises to the west, louder and louder until it breaks off abruptly. My eyes are blinded, painfully, by bright lights, glistening white and blue, and I hear footsteps approaching. Then there is someone in front of me, a man, and he says something. His voice is terribly loud; my ears are still ringing and I don't understand what he's saying. It sounds like a vaguely familiar foreign language. I raise my hands helplessly, and suddenly the dark figure reaches out for me. Panic washes over me in a stifling wave, and I turn to run. It's a miserable attempt and I don't get far.

My knees fold under me and everything turns black.

vvvvv

(From the police report November 14th, 2003)

_Near 23.30 residents near the local park observed an unknown woman and notified police by phone. The patrol found the woman wandering disoriented near the edge of the pond. When they spoke to the approximately 20-year-old female, she first attempted to escape and then lost consciousness. Her identity could not be ascertained, as no i.d. card was found, nor any other personal documents. The patrol called an ambulance which took the unknown female to the local hospital_.

(Entry Emergency Room Journal, November 15th, 0.30 a.m.)  
_  
At 0.10 a unconscious female patient of approximately 20 years was brought into the E.R. Blood pressure and body temperature indicated a state of shock, and blood analysis revealed a severe iron deficiency. The identity of the patient cannot be ascertained. Until she regains consciousness and a case history can be drawn up, she has been taken to the central house (Internal Section, Room 124)_.

I open my eyes to a world of pure, overwhelming whiteness, above me, beneath me, and on all sides. I move one hand and my palm strokes some smooth fabric. Someone has covered me, and dressed me in something other than my pullover.

I blink, prop myself up on my elbow, try to sit up. A whirling dizziness makes me sink back into the pillows; I close my eyes and swallow the saliva that fills my mouth.

Wisps of memory drift through my dazed exhaustion. I welcome them thankfully, even though I can't get them in order.

Not yet.

_Another bed, another room. But the walls surrounding me there are gray, not white. The room has no windows, and on the desk beside the bed burns a candle. There are men, and gentle hands touching me. Someone lifts my head and gives me something to drink the taste of hypericum and willow bark, the sharp bitterness eased with honey. And voices above me, quiet and concerned_.

_"Will she recover?"_

_"We do for her what we can. But she is weak."_

Where was that? A monastery? An old castle? I don't know. But the memories are coming fast now.

_Grass under my booted feet. A deadly gray sky. And a thundering of horses' hooves that makes the ground shake.  
_  
I gaze up at the white ceiling, my eyes wide open. The next image is the clearest of them all, and it hits me violently, like a blow.

_A stone city, fair and venerably old, but strangely deserted; parts of it seem to have been destroyed. A high wall and an immense green vastness beyond, but fires are burning everywhere, and the air is full of fumes, black plumes that drift aimlessly across the view of a narrow, silvery lace that must be the river, near the horizon._

_I am standing on a wide plain. Once it must have been green and beautiful, but now it is broken up and ravaged. Corpses lie everywhere, and the smell is unbearable. I become aware of my own body; my knees tremble and my right arm hangs useless by my side, blood dripping from my fingers. A single rider is staring down on me from his saddle. His face is black with smoke and he wears heavy beaten chain armour. His long black hair is tousled and dusty. I look up at him, the pain in my arm nearly bowling me over, and in spite of this I start to laugh. And the rider smiles, his teeth stunningly white in his dirty face_.

How clear these short dreams are – especially the last one! It was like a film, sharp and vivid, running inside my mind. Suddenly I am intensely thirsty. Maybe there's a glass of water somewhere about? I turn to look for one, and at this moment the door opens.

The woman who comes in is white all over, like the room. She must be a doctor; her smock looks freshly ironed and a stethoscope hangs around her neck. My eyes are caught by the ballpoint pens in her breast pocket, and I lie staring at them. She draws up a chair to sit beside my bed and feels my pulse with professional competence.

"Very good," she says. "Much better than last night. How are you?"

"I... I don't know."

The sound of my voice, hoarse and strangely guttural, surprises me. The oddest thing is – I wonder at the words I'm using.. It is as if I were speaking another language, without quite knowing which one.

"The police found you in the local park, near midnight. It seems that you were wandering around there close to the pond. Do you know how you got there?"

"No."

"Can you tell me your name? Shall we call someone for you?"

"I... I am Sabrina... Sabrina Steinenberg."

_At least one thing I'm sure of. My name is Sabrina.  
_  
"Fine, Miss Steinenberg. We didn't find an identity card or other personal documents in your pockets. Can you tell me where you had been before you were found in the park?"

"I... I have no idea."

"Never mind." The doctor pats my hand comfortingly. Her face is tired and not really young anymore, but she looks very kind. "All that will surely come back. At least your head isn't injured, as far as we could see. Your loss of memory must be due to exhaustion. But we found something else. Your right arm must have been broken not very long ago. It seems to have been an open fracture and a deep laceration, as if caused by a long knife. Can you tell me how it happened?"

I stare at her. Then – with a hasty movement – I tug the hospital shirt from my shoulder and gaze at my arm. A long scar, freshly healed, red and bulging on the pale skin.

_A crashing strike. I'm lying face to the ground, screaming into the broken earth. My death is standing behind me, a jagged sword in his hand. _

No. Oh no.

_The smiling rider. He lifts me up on his horse, and I feel his chain mail against my back, bruising me. I smell blood, despair and the death of thousands on the body of this man who presses me with great gentleness against his chest. His horse begins to walk slowly. _

That is not true.

And suddenly everything is there again: every detail, every image, every single memory. My head rolls back, my hands claw at my nightshirt, and I hear somebody shrieking, in a frenzy of despair. Then for the second time within a few hours, everything before my eyes turns black.


	2. Two diaries

2. **Two diaries**

I have been relocated. This is not the hospital any more where I woke up first. Some time between the strangely surreal encounter with the doctor and this moment they have brought me somewhere else.

I have a sour taste in my mouth and a furry feeling on my tongue. From my bed I can see a window. Sunbeams wander across the room, first bluish pink, then white. In the evening, the light turns red and vanishes away, while I lie there still, my head pressed into the pillow, trying not to think.

They make it easy for me not to think. There is a tranquilizer drip in my arm, and when I came back to consciousness the first time, my wrists were tethered to the bed rails with short strips of cloth. Those first days I spent here, time stretched like an elastic band. I stared at the window with my eyes half closed, registering indifferently that it was barred: an elegantly scrolled gate of black wrought iron, but bars are bars, however elegant.

This morning I felt really awake for the first time. A doctor and a nurse came in together; they removed the drip. The doctor talked to me, and I answered elliptically. I told him my name, and finally we managed something like a conversation. It seems they don't feat any longer that I might hurt myself or attack the nursing staff, during one of my "episodes"; after our short conversation the doctor removed my restraints and briefly patted my shoulder.

_As if he could comfort me with that_.

Outside, the sun is setting again. I prop myself up and push away the covers, set my feet carefully on the ground. The room spins in a nauseating whirl as I get up; a high-pitched tone hums inside my ears and I cling convulsively to the headboard. When the room is still again, I walk over to the window. The sky is crimson and full of glory.

Behind the house lies a small garden with white graveled paths that wind around winter-bare flowerbeds. Three or four carefully pruned apple trees stretch their leafless branches into the sky. Then there is a fence (it is high and looks stable) and behind this fence harvested fields stretch to the horizon. Very far in the distance lies a wood. There is also a road; car headlights appear like fireflies and disappear again. Not many of them. This hospital must be very isolated.

Slowly I walk over to the washbasin on the wall and open the faucet. First the water is tepid, then it gets refreshingly cold. I run my wet hands through my hair und across my cheeks; when I look up, I can see myself in the mirror.

Eyes that are too big for the face. Sickly pale skin and a nose that seems strangely pointed. Stringy hair, hanging limp and tousled down my back. A firmly closed mouth... as if violently trying to hide a mystery.

_The last mirror I looked in was made of polished brass. His hands had playfully plaited my hair into a braid, and I loosened it again while I looked spellbound at my reflection. My arm was bandaged in white and the wound hurt, but in that moment I didn't feel the pain. He stepped behind me, still naked, and his warm hand cupped my bare breast._

_"You are so beautiful. I simply can't believe what a gift you gave to me."_

I stare at myself and feel how I start to shiver.  
_  
"When do you have to go?"_

_His hand caressed me, his breath swept warm across my skin._

_"The army starts this Midday."_

_I winced violently._

_"I don't want to let you go,"I said. My body was numb and tensed._

_"We have one hour left."_

_He could die so easily in the battle._

_"One hour..."  
_  
I bite my lips and close my eyes.

_"One hour is a long time."_

_His voice was warm and deep, I could hear the smile in it. I realized that he was deliberately hiding the thought of the way to the Black Gate from me. He wanted to protect me, and the depth of the love I felt for him made my heart hurt._

_"Don't leave me."  
_  
I press a hand onto my mouth and feel tears running down my face, silent and irresistible. I fumble myself back to the bed, numb and woodenly like an old woman. I lie down and draw the cover over my head.

_"Don't leave me."_

I lie on my side, my knees drawn up, my arms over my head as if I shielded it from a blow. The pain is almost unbearable. In the end he didn't leave. I was the one who left.

vvvvv

Meanwhile I am already here for one or two weeks – I can't say exactly, though there are some photo calendars in the corridors. The doctors are very patient; nearly every day I'm sitting in some white painted surgery, answering much is expected from me.

Naturally, I don't tell them the truth.

I say nothing about how the reality that has been my life for twenty-five years dissolved and simply disappeared from one moment to the next. I don't tell them how the words felt suddenly strange in my mouth... or my shock when I realized I was speaking a completely different language, a language I had never learned, fluently, without effort. I don't say that my jeans and knitted pullover vanished, and I found myself in strangely-cut trousers and a tunic closed with horn buttons, my feet in soft leather boots.)

Especially I don't tell them the most striking, unexplainable fact of the whole thing - what happened to me was no time journey. Perhaps I could have fit that into my worldview. Instead, I have lived for weeks within a universe that never existed, never will exist, at all.

Or so I had believed - until now.

The doctors have asked me to write a diary. The psychiatrist who talks with me every day has given me a slim book of empty white pages. Write what moves me, he says. Everything I remember, he says, so we will finally get a whole image, something that makes sense. At that moment his pager beeps; he apologizes and leaves the room. I let my gaze wander idly across the office, and on a shelf behind his huge desk I discover a pile of books identical to the one in my hands. I sneak over to the shelf and take one of the books, tuck it in my waistband and cover it loosely with the long dark blouse they have given me. When the doctor comes back, we exchange a few more words and he hands me a ball-point pen with an expansive gesture. Goodbye, I say. I walk out and all the way to my room I feel the pressure of the hidden book, cool against my skin.

Meanwhile they have come to the conclusion that I'm suffering from severe amnesia, and they are welcome to their opinion. It is not important if I really can't remember what I have done the last three months. The main point is to convince everyone that I really don't know.

But there must be someone – like in that other place – to whom I can tell the truth. And among my few relatives and friends there is only one whom I perhaps can tell what has happened to me.

I got to know Faith at an international journalist's forum, and we got on well together, right from the beginning. We found we had similar interests and began e-mailing back and forth. She edited one of my series of articles, and I found her to be one of the cleverest, most humorous people I know. The fact that we have never met is an extra benefit: I will not be forced to see the doubt in her face when I tell her my story. Or even the horror, the growing conviction that I am in this hospital for good reason. When she reads this fantastic, this unbelievable tale, she will be sitting in front of her computer screen in America - provided I can get my laptop back in time, and still remember how to use it.

Or perhaps I'll rip the pages off and put them into an envelope. The main thing is to write it down, and that she will read it at any time. For I have to tell it somebody, or I will in fact go mad.

So I'm sitting this evening at the narrow and unsteady desk near the window, with two books lying in front of me. The first one – which I will give to the doctors – contains only a few sentences. _I can barely remember anything. From time to time names drift past my inner eye, but they always vanish at once. I wish I knew what I did in the last three months_. Hopefully they are content with that.

Not a word of this is true. I know exactly who I am, where I come from, where I have been.

_Dear Faith_, I write (and I hope my English will not let me down)_ dear Faith, I have to tell you something. Maybe you will not believe me, but I have to try anyway. _

I pause. I'm not used to writing with a pencil any more; probably my hand will hurt terribly after three pages. I decide that this is irrelevant and continue.

_It all started nearly three months ago; I was working on an enquiry and went to our local library..._


	3. Memories

**3. Memories**

_Write something about Tolkien_, said the chief editor of the newspaper I worked for from time to time. I could nearly see his ironic grin over the phone line._ They have made these films out of his huge tomes, and the advertising circus they're doing is immense. The first film beats all records, and it is nominated for the Oscars more than a dozen times. Just try to explain to our readers what it's all about. You know all about it, don't you?  
_  
_Yes, indeed._ And now I was on my way to the library on a September day that glowed with colour. I knew the librarian, and she loved Tolkien's work as much as I did, perhaps even a little bit more. She had a lot of secondary literature and also some of the new publications I hadn't bought yet. My edition of "The Lord of the Rings" was twelve years old, the other books by him that I had were barely newer.

The library was located in an old half-timbered house; by each window were comfortable chairs and small tables to hold the books. I installed myself in a niche with the biography of Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter I had taken from a shelf. The book opened to a page that had obviously been often read, the author's account of a very important time in Tolkien's life: the short, idyllic part of his childhood spent with his mother and brother in the bucolic village of Sarehole, near Birmingham. My eyes caught a single sentence: _She fell into a diabetic coma and died hours later._ The death of Mabel Tolkien had deeply unsettled her son, and the short happy time before her end had shaped him for the rest of his life.

I read the sentence again and again; suddenly my eyes burned and I felt my throat grow tight.

And from one moment to the next I was thirteen again, and I sat at a lovingly laid table, but one chair remained empty. We sat vis-à-vis, my father and I, but we didn't dare to face each other. One month ago my mother had lost her life in one of those senseless car accidents that no one can really explain afterwards. Why did that old woman have to rush out of her drive at exactly that moment, when my mother passed by with a full shopping basket? It seemed she had tried to brake, but caught the throttle instead, and she simply ran my mother down. She died instantly, and for my father, his whole world collapsed.

He became nearly totally silent. I needed someone to talk with me, to hold me in his arms and comfort me, but my father simply couldn't do it. At night I could hear him crying bitterly in the half-empty marriage bed, and the terrible vehemence of his sorrow frightened me. A resolute aunt took matters in her own hands; my father received an invitation to a medical congress and accepted it with relief, and I was put on a train and freighted to Northern Germany where my grandmother lived.

Only a few days before my mother died I had started reading Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". During the long weeks of pain and heartbreaking loneliness, I had barricaded myself behind this story. Should Tolkien's critics scoff about escapism... never before in my life had I been more in need of a way to escape. Frodo Baggins, the small, brave hobbit with his nearly impossible task, became my best friend. In the long nights when my father's anguished sobs penetrated the walls, and I hid under the covers with my book and flashlight, I made a kind of agreement with destiny: if my hero really managed to throw the Enemy's ring into Mount Doom, my father would finally notice me again. We would give each other the comfort we so urgently needed: _absolutely sure!  
_  
While the express rattled northwards, I sat curled in the corner of my compartment and rushed through the third book. I read how Frodo returned to the Shire, after his task had been fulfilled... and how he went from there to the Grey Havens, exhausted and tired of life. _And I can't go with you! _Sam said in the book to his master._ Don't you leave me, too!_ a desperate voice whispered in my heart.

Soon after dawn I reached the station, a small hick town far outside of Hamburg. I got off the train on unsteady legs and found my grandmother waiting for me, all alone. Her long, ice-grey hair was braided on top of her head like a crown; she wore an ankle-length black skirt and her favourite skyblue cardigan; my mum had knitted it for her last Christmas. She sat on a low wooden bench, and when she recognized me, she smiled her familiar, beloved smile and opened her arms to me.

"Hello, _min lütte Deern," _she said. "There you finally are."

I dropped my suitcase and went to her; when I reached her side, my strength was literally spent. The next thing I knew, I was cowering in front of the bench, my head buried in her lap, crying as I had never cried before in all my life. I cried for my dead mother, and for my father who seemed to have died with her; I cried for myself, as she sat caressing my head and humming quietly under her breath.

And - strangely enough - I also cried for Frodo Baggins, who had grown so dear to my heart, sailing beyond the horizon of my inner eye, on board an elven ship whose white sails faded in the dawn.

vvvvv

The memory that had overcome me in the library followed me the whole rest of the day. In the evening I had a little snack, then I sat down at my desk, opened my Laptop and tried a first layout of my article.

I didn't manage even a single sentence. Nearly half an hour I stared unseeing at the empty screen, remembering. My grandmother's thatch-roofed house, surrounded by a garden that hummed with bees, full of the many herbs she grew and dried there. She did a lively trade in home-made teas, supplying half the neighbourhood (the other half sometimes crossed to the other side of the street when she approached, and secretly crossed their fingers behind their backs). My grandmother didn't care, and more than one woman who refused to greet her in daylight came after nightfall to have her fortune told with the cards.

I learned that willow bark is used to bring down fever, and how to mix a thick, strong-smelling ointment of marigold and arnica. After some weeks I could distinguish between true and false chamomile and managed to create a proper tea from nasturtium and hypericum. And when I wasn't picking herbs with my grandmother, I lay in the meadow behind her house, chewing on a stem of garden sorrel and reading "The Lord of the Rings" for the second and third time.

I talked to my father on the phone a few times, very short conversations. After each call I buried myself deeper in my book, my refuge. Obviously fate had betrayed me: the ring had gone into the fire, but my father - back now from his medical congress and buried in the work of his busy surgery - still kept his distance. My grandmother, wisely, said little; only once she remarked:_ "Immer sutje, Deern. _He needs his time." I looked at her, then took "The Two Towers" and went out to the meadow with my head down. _I don't need time,_ I thought. _I need_ him,_ and he is letting me down_.

Four months later I went back to him; slowly, with difficulty, we became close again. I repeated the missed school year and graduated. My father, who was already ill at that time, would have liked to see me take over his surgery. I studied medicine for two years to please him, but when he died I dropped out. He had left me well provided-for, and I kept our house and started working as a freelance journalist.  
_  
Last of all he came. His men passed in. The mounted knights returned, and at their rear the banner of Dol Amroth, and the prince. And in his arms before him on his horse he bore the body of his kisman, Faramir son of Denethor, found upon the stricken fields.  
_  
I winced. The quotation from "The Return of the King" came so as clearly to my mind as if someone sat beside me and read it aloud. And again I remembered; how I lay on the meadow behind the house of my grandmother reading this scene and blinking away my tears.

_"Faramir! Faramir!" men cried, weeping in the streets. But he did not answer, and they bore him away up the winding road to the Citadel and his father.  
_  
Exasperated, I switched off the laptop and drank the rest of the glass of wine I had poured ... something to fire my inspiration. Fresh air - maybe a walk would help.

I drew a hand-knitted pullover over my blouse and started for the local park. In the sleepy little town where I lived a woman could wander about even at night without danger, and that was just what I wanted to do. When I reached the park it was nearly midnight, and the street lamps reflected white and yellow in the water of the pond. The air was damp and cool.

I walked around the pond several times, but I was tired and I began to feel cold. Probably I'd write nothing more this evening anyway... I might as well go home and get into bed.

I turned around, took a few steps, and suddenly there was short grass under my feet instead of the white graveled path. A great dizziness came over me, so intense that I lost my balance. I had just seen a park bench in front of me and I tried to cling to it, but it had vanished. All at once I found myself on hands and knees, shaken by nausea. I choked and closed my eyes. It is hard to describe how I felt... it was as if I was ripped out of myself, falling through a long tunnel. And then, although I had not moved at all, I was thrown with full impact out of the tunnel into emptiness... and back into my body.

I trembled so violently that my teeth chattered; my very skeleton seemed to be vibrating. I still felt horribly sick, and I asked myself desperately how I would manage to get home in this condition. But the dizziness began to fade, and I was able to take stock of my surroundings.

The first thing that attracted my attention was how different the air smelled. The park had smelled unmistakeably _green_, because of the many trees and bushes, but the proximity of the street was still noticeable, even though there were not many cars at night. The fragrance in my nose now was strange and new, and astonishingly _unspent._ A strange way to put it, I know, but I cannot find a better way to express it.

I opened my eyes and sat up slowly, looking around.

As far as my eyes could see was a grassy landscape without houses or streets, vaulted by a dark grey sky. Far away on the horizon I could discern a blurry chain of mountains. And all this land was, literally, empty.

_What, for heaven's sake --?_

I stood up and shook my head, turning slowly around, trying to get myself oriented. Behind me the grassy plain stretched unbroken to the horizon. The land seemed to be completely unsettled.

How did I get here? Was it a dream? How was that possible... I hadn't been sleeping in my bed! The last thing I knew, I had been standing in the local park, near the pond, ready to turn back and go home.

I wiped a hand over my face and at that moment I discovered I wasn't wearing the garments I had on when I left my house. Instead of the colourful knitted sleeve I had expected, I saw dark cloth and under it, a white shirt sleeve. I froze for a moment, then gazed in bewilderment down my body.

Jeans, pullover, and sneakers were gone. My feet were encased in soft leather boots, and I wore tight trousers of some woolen material. There was also a shirt, and over the shirt a tunic that covered my hips. Added to this, I was wrapped in a cape that fell to my knees. It had a hood that was drawn over my head, and when I felt for the closing, I found some kind of brooch or fibula to hold it under my chin. I tried to open it and pricked my finger.

_"Ouch!"_

It hurt, but now I was sure this was no dream, for I did not wake up. I didn't find myself back in the park, nor in my bed.

Finally I managed to open the pin. I held the cloak under my chin with my free hand and examined the brooch.

It measured at least five centimeters across, rhombus-shaped, and looked like beaten silver, but it seemed too lightweight. _Maybe tin._ In the surface was engraved a tree with a richly reticulated crown, and above the crown a skillful hand had set seven tiny white crystal stones, like stars, into the metal.

_A tree and seven stars_.

At that moment I felt the ground under my feet tremble slightly. I turned to the east - at least I presumed it must be east, for there was no sun to guide me - and saw a group of riders, five or six men, coming at a fast trot. They were about fifty metres away, but in my confusion I simply hadn't noticed them until now. When I looked up, they stopped suddenly, and as I watched one of them pointed in my direction.

Fear closed my throat, but I stood where I was. Where could I hide, anyway?

The riders began moving again, fast, straight at me.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

_min lütten Deern_ – my little girl  
_immer sutje, min Deern_ – slow down, my girl


	4. Horror in the Darkness

**4. Horror in the Darkness  
**  
The leader of the men reined to a stop directly in front of me. The horse was gigantic, with red nostrils, its flanks steaming in the cold air. The rider also was not small - if it had been his intention to daunt me, he had succeeded.

I tipped my head back to look at him and our eyes met; his were grey like a stormy sky. Watchful eyes in a remarkably beautiful face framed by dark, shoulder-length hair; there was a certain hardness to his expression, yeteven as he looked me over a large part of my fear left me. Something my American friend Faith once said came into my mind; we had been discussing a movie, and she said of the hero, "He is one of the good guys."

Wherever I was, whoever these people were, this man was no enemy. Although I knew that his men watched me tensely, waiting for the order to detain me, I felt safe in spite of my confusion.

"Who are you, lad?" he asked. "And what are you doing here all alone?"

_Lad? Didn't he see that..._ I remembered that the hood covered my hair. I was not very big, and my figure was boyish. Perhaps this was all to the good...

"I don't know," I said. "I - I have been wandering around here for hours, Lord, and I have no idea how I came here."

I was uncomfortable even with this small bending of the truth, but what could I have told him? I appeared a few minutes ago out of nowhere? I had stayed as close to the truth as I could, I told myself. I felt instinctively that it would be a great mistake to betray this man.

He raised his eyebrow in puzzlement.

"Did you have no company? And where is your horse? You don't mean to say you are here on foot, do you?"

I shrugged and lifted my hands helplessly. The men surrounding the leader seemed to snap to attention, and I heard the hiss of a half-drawn sword. I froze, holding my breath.

"Sheath your sword, Mablung." The leader turned his head slightly and to my relief I heard the hint of a smile in his voice. "We do not make war on half-grown lads, and he does not have the look of one of the Dark Enemy's servants."

"Thank you, Lord," I said. "I would not betray you, and I swear to God, I am no danger. To speak truth, I am frightened to death."

That was more than true, and with a jolt of increased fear I realized suddenly that something was wrong with my language. I tried to understand what it was - it seemed as if every word I spoke had a strange new sound. Especially noticable was the word _God:_ I had pronounced four soft, melodic syllables instead of a single one, the last syllable open and clearly accentuated.

_What in heaven's name had happened to me?  
_  
The man looming over me must have seen the panic that flashed through my eyes, and his expression softened.

"Wherever you come from, I don't believe you are trying to deceive me. Do you at least know your name?"

I shook my head.

"Well, then." He straightened and motioned to one of the nearby riders, who brought his horse beside me.

"Damrod, take the lad up behind you. We cannot wait longer; we will deal with his case when we reach the city."

The rider reached down, and I took his hand without thinking. I was drawn up with a powerful jerk, landing hard on the croup of the mighty bay and scraping myself painfully against the saddle.

"Hold on tight," said the rider. All I could see of him was his broad back and dark tousled hair; obediently I wrapped my arms around him from behind. The bay began to trot, then broke into a gallop. The land flew by beneath us, and still there was not even a shimmer of sunlight. On the contrary - it grew steadily darker.

_I swear to God, I am no danger._

I whispered the sentence again and again under my breath as if it had been an incantation, letting the syllables roll across my tongue and tasting their sound like a strange flavour.__

I swear to God...

Again the soft, four-syllabled word, strange and at the same time familiar.

_God. God._

Abruptly, I realized what I was actually saying.

_Iluvatar_.

I gasped and pressed my forehead against the back of the strange rider, closing my eyes.

vvvvv

After that there is a gap of about two hours in my memory. Probably my overburdened mind simply switched off to stop me from going mad. Fortunately my muscles functioned without my conscious attention and kept me from falling off the horse.

When I came halfway to myself again, I was still clinging behind the rider. My arms and shoulders ached; I had not ridden for several years and now I was paying for it. Meanwhile, during the time I had been lost to the world, darkness had fallen.

I swallowed and cleared my throat; I didn't trust my voice.

"Where are we? How long has it been night?"

"It is not far to the city now," the man said, looking over his shoulder. I still could see no more of him than a stubbly bearded cheek. "Normally night would fall within the next hour, if the Enemy had not darkened the day with his evil magic."

The next question slipped out before I could stop it. "Which city?"

_You don't want to know that!_ protested a panicky voice in my mind.

"Minas Tirith," said the man, a faint amazement in his voice.

_Minas Tirith_.

"And who... and who is your leader?"

"Faramir." There was pride in the rider's voice. "Faramir, the son of the Steward."

I clenched my teeth, holding back a cry. I felt numb. Cautiously my mind began to try and work it out, searching my memory. If this was Faramir and his company, on their way to Minas Tirith... considering what the rider had just said about the Enemy and his darkening of the daylight... I could draw only one conclusion. A shiver of horror went down my back.

"Is it true you can't remember anything, lad?" the rider asked suddenly. "Not even who you are?"

I sighed.

"It is true," I said, relieved that I didn't have to look in his eyes.

"That must be very confusing for you," he said.

Confusing? _He had no idea how confused I was_.

Suddenly the bay slowed from a gallop to a trot, and then to a walk. I tried to relax my tense muscles, leaning to one side to see around my companion.

Close before us was a stone wall that stretched to either side, farther than I could see. Torches flashed in several places; obviously men guarded the bastion, and all along it works of repair were in progress. There was an exchange of quiet greetings, and we rode through the gate. Far in the distance, barely visible, reared a great mountain; closer, but still far off, I could just discern the high buildings of the city.

Without warning a bolt of lightning struck down from the dark sky; in its garish white light the town was illuminated like something in a dream. At the highest point of the city a slender tower shimmered like a needle of pure silver.

"That is Minas Tirith," the rider said, "the city of the Kings of Gondor." Suddenly I remembered his name - Damrod.

I opened my mouth to answer, but in that moment the thunderbolt fell. A horrifying shriek rang from the sky, a voice that shrilled with evil, and other voices of equal terror gave answer.

_"Nazgul! Nazgul!" _someone screamed - could that have been Faramir's voice? The bay reared, higher and higher, and I felt myself falling, still clinging to Damrod as he hurtled to the ground.

I landed with full impact on grass wet with dew and rolled hastily out of the way as the man's body thudded down beside me, shaking the ground. The next instant I felt more than saw that Damrod was getting up; again there was the sound of a sword being drawn. Fear washed over me, an icy wave... and I knew something was plummeting down upon us.

"Down!" I gasped, my lips stiff. "Stay down!" I caught his shoulder and pushed him down with all the strength I could muster. Something winged swooped over our bent heads, so close that the air whooshed in my ears. I heard my own scream, thin and shrill, and pressed my face into the grass, blind with panic. The Nazgul turned and flew at us again, and Damrod half-rose and threw himself on top of me, shielding my back, my head and shoulders. The beast shot past a second time, hardly two meters above us.

And then...

...then from the corner of my eye I saw a single horseman, shining white, galloping past. Gasping for air, I raised my head and stared; a blinding light shot from the staff the white figure held aloft, and I heard the shrieking of the Nazgul once more, but farther off, faint and dying away as if they had lost their courage.

I sat up, feeling dizzy and sick. There were bits of grass and dirt in my mouth, and I spat and wiped my face with one faltering hand.

"Are you hurt, lad?"

I heard Damrod's voice close at hand and felt his hand on my arm. He was trembling from head to foot with shock, and I shuddered in sympathy. I wanted to answer him, but did not dare: if I opened my mouth at all, I knew I would start to cry. Fortunately he did not press me for a reply, and neither did he remove his hand; a double blessing.

Shadowy figures moved around us; after a few minutes two riders appeared out of the darkness. One was Faramir, swaying in his saddle, his face as pale as chalk. Beside him rode the figure of white: snowy hair and a long beard over a robe so white it glimmered in the dark. He still held his staff, a gentle light radiating from the tip, surrounding him like a crystal gloriole and illuminating the spot where we still knelt on the grass.

Amazement swept aside my fear and exhaustion; I pushed myself to my feet and stared up at him, stared also at his horse, beautiful and mighty. I heard Damrod gasp, and realized suddenly that the hood had slipped from my head when I fell. My hair had always been my pride: copper red, hanging nearly to my waist. Now it was visible to everyone.

The eyes of the white horseman bored into mine, and he leaned forward in the saddle to examine me.

"A _lad,_ did you say, Faramir?" His voice was clear and deep, an old man's voice that somehow rang like music. "I think you have been duped, my friend. This is a lass, unless my eyes deceive me."


	5. Wanderer between two worlds

**5. Wanderer between two worlds**_  
_

My face burned with shame, and I had to work up my courage to look at Faramir as I mechanically brushed blades of grass from my cloak.

"I must apologize, Lord," I said quietly. "I fear I don't know who I am myself, still less who you are. And when you took me for a boy..."

"...you simply didn't object. I understand." Faramir tried to smile, only partially succeeding. I observed him more closely and didn't like what I saw. He was more than just pale; he had the look of someone who had reached the limits of his endurance a long time ago, and who might be pushed beyond what he could bear at any moment.

Gandalf spoke. "We must bring the men into the town, Faramir,"he said, but his penetrating gaze was still fixed on me and for a dizzy moment I felt as if those dark, merciless eyes were looking right into my mind. Instinctively I raised one hand and shook my head slightly; the gaze became less intense and then withdrew.

Gandalf put down his staff and took the reins.

"A blow to the head might leave a person remembering nothing," he said soberly. He turned to Damrod. "Do you know where the Houses of Healing are, in Minas Tirith?"

"Yes, Lord." Damrod bowed slightly.

"Guide the lass there and tell the healers to examine her. I will follow in a few hours, when I have spoken with the Steward."

He turned Shadowfax and rode slowly toward the faraway city gate, Faramir by his side. The men followed on foot, the dim light of Gandalf's staff like a beacon before them. Damrod and I stood a moment longer, watching them.

"I hope I didn't hurt you, damsel, a little while ago," Damrod said hesitantly. He looked embarrassed. "I was rather rough with you. I beg your pardon; I didn't know..."

_"For heaven's sake,_ Damrod!" I blurted. "Have you forgotten already that first I pushed you with your nose to the ground to keep that... _thing_ from slashing your back? Can't you just keep pretending that I'm a boy?"

"I fear not." There was amusement in his dark, warm voice, and in the half-light I saw his teeth flash in a smile.

"Never mind." I grinned, feeling a little more at ease with him. "But I assure you: damsel or not, every bone in my body aches. Maybe you are missing your bay, but I won't bemoan the loss of that beast!"

A suppressed chuckle came out of the darkness; then we followed the wizard into the city.

vvvvv

It was a long way up the winding road through Minas Tirith to the Houses of Healing; they were located in the sixth circle near the south wall, close beneath the actual Citadel, where the Stewards resided.

Damrod led me through dark, silent gardens full of herbs. I smelled mint, and rosemary, and lavender; the healers must grow a good many of their own medicines, I thought. At last we came to a heavy wooden door; he swung it open, and we stood in a dim vestibule. Half a dozen candles burned in iron holders on the plain grey walls, and as Damrod closed the door an elderly man in a long dark robe came up to us.

"What can I do for you?"

Damrod delivered Gandalf's message. Before I was led away to be examined, he reached out, hesitating, and took my hand.

"Farewell, damsel," he said.

"Oh, please, not again!" I rolled my eyes and was rewarded with a broad grin.

Here in the candlelight I could see him properly for the first time, and I enjoyed what I saw. He reminded me a little of Faramir - a good, clear face with expressive grey eyes and dark, slightly wavy hair down to his shoulders. He was tall, but not immoderately so, and built like an athlete.

"Where are you going now?" I had known him only a few hours, but suddenly I knew I would regret it, if I did not see him again.

"I will report to the Guard of the Citadel," he said. "I don't think we can return to Ithilien with the Lord Faramir. The Lord of the City will decide where we are deployed."  
_  
Then may Iluvatar be gracious to you,_ I thought. Then I shivered, remembering with horror that Faramir would be forced by Denethor into a senseless, bloody defense of Osgiliath. Damrod frowned; he had seen the shadow cross my face.

"What is wrong?"

"Take care of yourself,"I said as casually as I could. I pressed his hand. "I would like to see you again."

He smiled and bowed.

"I will visit you if I can," he promised. He turned and went out, and I stood in the candlelit room staring at the door as it closed behind him. I felt nearly as bereft as I had long ago, after the death of my mother, when my energetic aunt had put me on the northbound train.

"Come, damsel."

I spun around; the healer was still standing on the same spot, waiting patiently.

"Come," he repeated. "Let us see if we can find out what happened to you."

_I'd like to know that myself,_ I thought miserably as I followed him.

vvvvv

I was examined very carefully. The Houses of Healing contained none of the modern instruments that I knew from two years of study; their examining room was nothing like a modern surgery. Nevertheless, I was rather impressed; I had the feeling that every patient treated here could count himself lucky.

They asked about nausea and headache, and they wanted to know if I was suffering from double vision. They examined every centimetre of my head for injuries and swelling. Naturally they found nothing, and over and over I gave them the same answer: _I don't know. I have no idea._ The elderly man who had received me was visibly distressed.

"I wish we could help you better, damsel," he said at last. He gave me an ointment of arnica, anyway, for the bruises I had gotten falling from Damrod's horse, and he offered me a room in the Houses of Healing. I literally did not know where else I could go, and I was more than thankful.

The room was small and spartanly furnished, but the bed was comfortable. I slipped out of my damp and wrinkled clothes with relief, dabbed my injuries with the sweet-smelling ointment, and put on the linen shirt they had given me. I crawled under the clean wool blankets and fell asleep almost immediately.

_Claws thrust deep into my back, ripping me out of the wet grass and up into darkness. My eardrums were torn by an ear-piercing shriek, and suddenly the brutal grip loosened. I fell into a black nothing... and fell... and fell... and fell..._

I rocketed up in my bed, gasping for breath, in a cold sweat. An oil lamp stood on a small desk across the room, a night-light; the little flame burned quiet and steady, a comforting glow. I sank back against the pillow, my heartbeat slowly returning to normal, and there was a knock on the door.

I had no idea what time it was; my watch had remained in another world, and there was no timepiece in this room. I pushed the damp hair out of my face and sat up again.

"Who is there?"

"Gandalf. I have to talk to you."

I winced. He couldn't have chosen a better moment - I was tired as death, I'd just awakened from a terrifying nightmare, and my powers of invention were used up. _Not a good time for well-crafted fairy tales._

"Is that really necessary? Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"It cannot. I have no time."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. "Very well, then. Come in."

vvvvv

He came in carrying a candle holder. The flames flickered, gilding his face and dividing it into shifting regions of light and shadow. Wordlessly he set the candle holder on the desk and turned the chair around, sitting so that he could regard me closely.

I met his gaze nervously; the dark eyes held mine as inexorably as they had a few hours before before the gates of the city. I felt him delving into my mind, sifting my thoughts, and this time I made no attempt to fend him off. It would have been useless anyway.

At last, after endless moments, he released me. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath of relief. When I opened my eyes again he was still looking at me, his brow furrowed and lips pressed tight together, as if he had found a mystery he did not expect.

"Who are you?" he asked. His voice was hoarse and tired. "Where do you come from?"

I didn't answer. What should I tell him? How could I explain the crazy anachronism of my presence in Middle Earth - not only to him, but also to myself. _Especially to myself._

He leaned forward, and the simple wooden chair creaked in protest.

"I know you didn't lose your memory. Whoever, _whatever_ you are, I am sure you are completely aware of it. When you spoke to Faramir after the Nazgul's attack, you were concerned - but not as if you barely knew him. In your mind I saw the name of his father, and you thought of Denethor with revulsion and rage. You _know _Faramir - and you know the Steward of Gondor. _How _do you know them?"

Helplessly I raised my hands and let them drop. "I don't know how..." I began. "I don't know how I... how to explain."

"Try,"he said.

I swallowed. My profession had taught me the use of words, but now I sat mute and helpless before him.

"It began with a walk,"I said finally. "I left.... I left my house, because I couldn't sleep, and I took a walk in the dark. When I got tired, I wanted to go home, but then -- something happened. Something strange."

Again he leaned forward, his dark eyes sharp and wide awake.

"What happened?"

"I fell," I said hesitantly. "I fell, and I felt sick... dizzy. I had been walking on a gravel path, and suddenly it was short grass. My clothes had vanished and I was wearing --_ these."_I pointed at the garments hanging from a hook on the wall, at the wrinkled shirt lying on the floor. "Not long after that I met Lord Faramir and his men. I didn't know them and I was afraid. They thought I was a boy; I made no objection. And..."

The sense of that terrifying panic came back to me, my panic when I became aware that my own words were strange in my ears, and for a moment I couldn't speak. Once again an icy chill shivered down my back.

"And?"

"And I spoke a language I didn't know,"I said quietly.

His eyes brightened as if he had suddenly realized something. He raised a hand and rubbed his chin pensively. Again the candles flickered; the light danced across the richly embroidered sleeve of his robe and his beard shimmered like silver.

Then he asked me a question.

"Do you know what a hobbit is? Have you ever heard of Bilbo Baggins? Or of the Shire?"

I didn't believe my ears. I stared at him, completely stunned, until I realized that he was still awaiting my answer.

"Yes, I have indeed," I finally managed. "Bilbo Baggins lived in Hobbiton, in a place called Bag End. More... more than sixty years ago, you tricked him into going on a harebrained adventure: he traveled with thirteen dwarves to the Lonely Mountain and challenged Smaug the Dragon. He found the Arken jewel and a war nearly broke out over it. After many adventures he went home again, but after that he was considered rather weird among his people."

Gandalf shook his head in astonishment. "What else do you know?"

I met his eyes and held them. "I know he found something else besides the Arken jewel,"I said. "In a cave under the Misty Mountains, just before he played a riddle game with a strange, half-blind creature... and I know that the thing he found did more than just make him invisible. He wore it for sixty years, and it kept him unnaturally young. He let go of it at last of his own will, but only by a great effort."

The wizard's jaw tensed, but if I had expected a sharp question, I was disappointed. He spoke softly to himself. "So he really wrote it down..."he murmured. "But how did he _know_ that it was the One? That was not revealed until..."

"Who? _Who_ wrote it down?" I asked. An outrageous suspicion sprang up in my mind, and I realized that he was probably the only being in Middle Earth who could help me to see clearly.

Gandalf hesitated, but at last he answered, his voice tense.

"A man," he said. "I saw him for the first time shortly after Bilbo's adventures. I met him near the Brandywine Bridge, and I was surprised, for men go there very seldom, if ever - the same as today. He moved around the Shire as if he were at home there, yet at the same time as if he were wandering through a dream."

He hesitated, then went on. "Although he was clad like a trader from Bree and spoke like one, I knew he was a stranger here... and not only a stranger to this part of Middle Earth, if you understand me."

For the first time I could look at him without being on my guard. It was a blessing not to have to lie, or even be silent.

"I know what you mean." I felt my face relaxing into a smile. "He was a stranger to this world... the same as me."

Gandalf smiled back and for a moment I saw _Mithrandir _before me, joining in hobbit celebrations, shooting fireworks into the air.

"How long did he stay?" I was eager to know more.

"The first time: nearly half a year," said Gandalf. "After that he came back from time to time, always for a few days or weeks. He was not conspicuous, but we met again and again, as if he knew where he could find me. He wandered long distances, and I often allowed him to accompany me. After some thought, I brought him to the Council. He was questioned, and he answered honestly, speaking of the world he came from. He seemed to be rather sad about many things in it... he told us it was soiled and foul. He spoke also of a war in which all his friends died in battle."

I nodded as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. "Did he ever tell you what it was like to... to change between the worlds?" I asked.

Gandalf gave me a curious look. "I do not think it caused him pain or fear," he said thoughtfully. "I had the impression that this change was as natural for him as breathing, that it was very easy for him to come and go."

He paused, then looked sharply at me again. "You know of whom I speak, do you?"

"Yes, I know him," I said. "But he didn't come from my own homeland."

He stared at me with amazement. "How do you know him, then?"

I sighed. I had been afraid of this question all the while, but he had the right to an answer.

"He wrote his experiences down," I replied. "There are many books about what he learned in Middle Earth, and everyone who wants to can read them."

"Bilbo's adventures are known in your world?"

"Oh yes, and not only his," I said. "But people think they are only stories, of course. Bilbo's adventures were written down as a tale for children, and many children know and love them."

"A tale for _children?" _Gandalf's jaw literally dropped. "With the spiders in Mirkwood - and the battle of the five armies? And _Smaug?" _Suddenly he laughed. "What kind of children do you have in your world? They must be different from the ones I know!"

I laughed with him. "Why? Don't the mothers of Middle Earth tell bedtime stories while the little ones hide anxiously under their covers?"

"Probably, yes," the wizard admitted. He rose and picked up the candle holder. "Get some sleep now. Tomorrow morning we will meet again, and I will think of what I can tell the Lord of this city about you."

"For heaven's sake, please _don't!"_ I exclaimed, horrified.

He eyed me thoughtfully. "Maybe you are right," he said slowly. "Denethor is a very mistrustful man."

_And half mad_.

The thought formed in my mind before I could suppress it; reflexively I put my hand over my mouth. His face was without any expression.

"Good night," he said finally. He had turned away and was already half-way out the door when I called him back.

"Will you answer a question for me?" I asked.

"What do you want to know?"

"What was his name here? What did you call the man from my world?"

"He called himself the _Pengolodh(1),"_said Gandalf. "And he was right - he had astonishingly keen perception; he learned _Sindarin_ and _Quenya_ so thoroughly and in such a short time that he could speak both languages fluently. And he was a great storyteller! I saw him more than once in some inn with a mug of beer and a pipe, spinning a fairytale out of thin air, while the guests hung on his words. When he was here the last time - about ten years ago – Galadriel, the Lady of the Golden Wood, gave him yet another name."

"What was it?"

"She called him _Starbrow."_

The door closed quietly, and I was alone with the faint night light and with my thoughts. I lay down, but I couldn't sleep; my head was spinning. I remembered Tolkien's lovely tale of the young smith who wore a silver star on his brow, and the Elven Queen who gave him the same name.(2) A cultured Oxford professor, correcting semester tests and then turning away from his world without effort to wander Middle Earth. Sitting before the fire with Gandalf, smoking their pipes side by side... visiting Galadriel in the Golden Wood, learning from her about the early ages of Arda... and returning to his desk to cloak unbelievable truths in fairy tales and legends, simply to be able to tell them.

The whole idea took my breath away. _It was not invented. It was all true_.

But when I fell asleep at last, near dawn, my most pressing question still had not been answered.

_What was I doing here?_

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

(1) _Pengolodh_ – Sindarin for _linguist_  
(2) Tolkien's Short Story_ Smith of Wootton Major_


	6. Of Herbs and Broken Bones

**6. Of herbs and broken bones  
**  
I woke next morning aching and stiff in every part of me. The high, narrow window with its pointed arch let in a glimmer of grey light. I got up and tried without much success to comb my hair with my fingers; then I leaned against the balustrade and pushed the casements with their uneven panes of glass wide open. The air was cool, smelling of wood smoke and garden herbs, and I breathed in deeply.

Someone knocked at the door. I spun around and tried to smooth my wrinkled nightshirt, wanting desperately to look presentable.

"Yes?"

The door was pushed open energetically and a little old woman whirled in, carrying a bundle over her arm. She closed the door with a bang and looked me over from head to toe with quick, bright eyes that made me think of an inquisitive little bird.

"Ah... so you are the damsel Lord Faramir and his men picked up on their way to the Minas Tirith? _Poor thing!_ But you are lovely – perhaps a bit on the thin side, yes? And such _beautiful_ hair! Is it true that you don't know who you are or where you come from?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but I could have spared my breath.

"I have brought you soap and fresh towels, love. And you cannot walk around in men's clothing – my goodness! Here is an under-dress and a robe of the sort we wear here in the Houses of Healing. And I brought sandals for you as well – they belong to my niece, and your feet are small like hers so they should fit – and a comb. I can make up your bed while you get dressed."

_For heaven's sake, no!_ "I... Could I get some water, please?" I interrupted hastily.

"Water. Yes, of course –water! Where is my head this morning! I'll bring you a jug and a washbowl – back in a moment, love!"

The door slammed again and she was gone. I pulled a face – half amused and half desperate – as I inspected the pieces of clothing she had left on the desk in a neat pile beside a clay pot full of soft brown herbal soap (lots of rosemary, I thought, sniffing at it). There were some thick, green towels as well, in several sizes. The robe was made of grey, smoothly woven linen, and it felt pleasant under my palm. Before I could examine the under-dress more closely, the old woman was back again, a steaming jug clutched against herself with one arm and in the other hand a basin.

"You're welcome, love. Get ready now, quick, and then we'll see where we can get some breakfast for you. The warden says that Lord Gandalf will be here soon to talk with you again."

"I know," I replied, giving her a brilliant smile. "Thank you very much for your help. We will meet again soon, then... yes?"

She closed her mouth, looking disappointed (obviously I had escaped the next torrent of words only by a hair!) and then she drew back, left the room and the door slammed for the third time this morning. I sighed in relief, slipped out of the nightshirt and began to wash myself.

vvvvv

Half an hour later I was dressed, my hair was combed and plaited into a thick braid, and I had finally gotten something to eat. I sat in a long, narrow room before a broad window enjoying my meal: milk and fresh bread, honey and fruit. The room was plainly a kind of refectory, where normally all the healers and caregivers would take their meals together.

This morning, however, I was alone and the room was very quiet. The day was gloomy and candles were burning in a branched candlestick on the table.

As I finished eating, the man who had examined me the previous evening came in and sat down. He introduced himself as Oroher, the warden of the Houses of Healing, and asked if I wished to have a look around while I waited for Gandalf.

For the next hour he ushered me through one treatment room after another. Everything was neat, well thought-out and scrupulously clean. In one room dozens of different herbs were stored, also ointments and oils: glasses, bottles and jars arrayed on shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The containers of dark glass were labeled with fine letters and very realistic drawings of the living plants. Oroher waited patiently while I wandered along the shelves, fascinated and trying to understand the system by which the herbs were arranged.

_"... blazes,_ how could that happen to me again!" It was a small, shabby-looking man with a kind face, wrinkled with age. His sleeves were rolled up and over his robe he wore an apron which had started out white, but now was blotched with spots of grease. A powerful aroma of peppermint hung about him, strong enough to make me sneeze.

"Did you have an accident, Mardil?" the warden asked mildly, his voice a mixture of humour and gentle resignation.

The old man blinked and finally noticed our presence. "Ah, Oroher," he said absent-mindedly. "You know, someone left a bed sheet on the ground outside. My feet got tangled in it somehow and the bottle slipped out of my hands." He shot a puzzled glance at me. "And you, damsel? Do you need something? Do you have a fever? A cold? I have no more eucalyptus, for the channels of supply from the south are unfortunately cut. And the peppermint oil...ah, yes, _that_..." His eyes were like a child's, sky blue, and he smiled at me shyly as if his awkwardness was terribly embarrassing to him. I loved him at once.

"No, I don't have a cold," I said, returning his smile. "But if I did have a fever, I would find everything I needed here. I see you have a good stock of willowbark and marigold."

His eyebrows shot up, vanishing under the cover of his tousled grey mop of hair. "Oh, are you skillful in healing?" he exclaimed with delight. I remembered just in time that I wasn't supposed to know if I was skillful or not, and I tried to look as perplexed as possible.

"Obviously the damsel is well-informed," Oroher said cheerfully, laying a hand on my shoulder. "This gives me hope, child... perhaps your memory will come back later on. Would you like to lend the herbmaster a hand, if Lord Gandalf has no objection?" He glanced at Mardil. "I think he really could use some help."

"Perhaps she could stay here right now?" Mardil inquired hopefully.

Oroher promised to call me as soon as Gandalf arrived, bidding me a friendly farewell. I took a dustpan and broom out of a corner and swept up the shards of glass from behind the door. While I mopped up the spilled oil, Mardil gave me a lecture on the healing virtues of wolfsbane and thyme.

vvvvv

Gandalf arrived late in the forenoon; he looked tired and worried and he didn't have much time. I brought him a mug of cooled wine and we went out into the herb gardens.

"Did you tell Denethor about me?" I asked. He took a sip of his wine and shook his head.

"I avoided the subject," he said. "I don't know how he would react in his present state of mind."

"Thank you," I said. "The most reasonable thing for me to do is to stay right here. I have begun to make myself at least a little useful."

"How so?" Gandalf regarded me curiously, then frowned and sniffed. "You smell of peppermint."

I grinned. "The herbmaster had a problem with a bottle of peppermint oil."  
_  
"Mardil?"_Gandalf snorted audibly and shook his head. "He is a well of wisdom, unfortunately with two left hands. He needs all the help he can get."

He set down his mug and looked at me. "I want to ask you something. How much did the _Pengolodh_ write down? Last night you said that he knew the One, and I don't understand how that is possible. He has not been here for ten years, and it is only in the last year that I have been certain myself what ring it was, that Frodo had all this time at Bag End. I assume you know who Frodo Baggins is, and where he is going?"

I nodded wordlessly.

"But how do you know him?"

I looked down at my hands. "I think," I said slowly, "it has to do with the fact that we are coming from different times. In the time where...where I come from, the _Pengolodh _has been dead for nearly thirty years."

I heard him breathe in sharply.  
_  
"Dead? _I have to admit, I didn't expect that." He was visibly shaken. After a moment of silence, he added softly: "He was a man of wisdom, not a warrior, and when I last met him he seemed healthy, in the prime of life."

"Gandalf." I looked into his eyes, holding them. "When he died thirty years ago, he was more than eighty years old and – in our world – a very aged man."

He took another sip of wine as he pondered my words.

"But that means..."

I could see the sudden realization in his eyes. 

"... that means, he will come _one more time._ After the Ring War – however it ends. Is that true?"

I nodded again, not daring to speak. It was only too obvious what he would ask next.

"Do you _know_ how it ends?"

I sighed. "Yes, I know."

"Tell me."

I remained silent.

He laid a hand on my arm. It was not a hard grip, but I was aware suddenly of the tremendous power concealed in the body of the old wizard – power that was now very close to the surface.

"I don't ask you to tell me every detail. I would not want to know everything, and I understand why you hesitate. Perhaps I, too, would hesitate, in your place. But I must demand one thing of you: _Give us hope!" _

I looked up at him. His face held great authority, but also deep pain, and his eyes burned with intensity.

"Give us hope," he repeated.

Shyly I put my hand on top of his. I would not have dared such a thing, but his distress was palpable, and he seemed almost forlorn as he contemplated the struggle before him.

"The king will come," I said, aware that my voice was shaking. The wizard kept his eyes fastened on my face. "And the mission of the Ringbearer is not in vain. Sauron will fall."

The strong old fingers turned and closed around mine so hard that I bit my lips.

"Do you swear that?"

"I swear it by my life,"I said, and now my voice was steady. "_Sauron will fall."_

Gandalf released my hand then. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he leaned forward and took my face in his hands, kissing my forehead. I stood absolutely still, shaken and deeply moved. Then he turned away without another word and went down the garden path, his steps quick. He held himself very straight, and there was a new impetus to his movements. The tall white figure blurred before my eyes, and I realized without surprise that I was weeping.

vvvvv

By early afternoon I had sorted the jars of herbs and bottles of oil in Mardil's storeroom, at least superficially. Then I went with the herbmaster to the refectory or, more accurately, I found the way there for both of us, after Mardil led us astray and we ended up in a huge room full of clean bed sheets piled to the ceiling. He was dismayed at getting us lost, but he didn't lose his good humour and dug into the simple stew served by the kitchen with a hearty appetite. I found out later that he had been working in the Houses of Healing for forty years or more, and in spite of that fact he still lost his way every second day.

After the quick meal I left Mardil and went to look for Oroher. He was in one of the sick rooms, and had just finished dressing a deep wound in a young man's leg. It seemed to be an open laceration, but as far as I could see, the bones had already been adjusted properly. On a tray before the warden lay white linen bandages and a bowl containing a dark green herbal mash. I smelled a powerful aroma of arnica, but also another scent that I couldn't identify at once, bitter and a little sharp.

"Is this field horsetail?" I asked. Oroher smiled approvingly and nodded, and once more I blessed my grandmother to whom I owed my knowledge. I observed how Oroher drew a part of the dressings through the herbal mash and placed them carefully on the well-cleaned wound, and he noticed that I was watching.

"Have you ever placed a bandage?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," I lied, remembering three months of practical training in the hospital of my hometown. The head nurse who kept half a dozen terrified students under her thumb at that time had forgotten more about healing wounds and caring for patients than I would ever learn, and she knew it. To fool around with dressing material under her gimlet eyes would have been suicide.

"I could try," I suggested with appropriate humility. So I wound a snowy white bandage over the herb-soaked dressing, while Oroher supervised. I could almost hear Nurse Irmingard's snarling alto in my ears: _Smooth, firm and neat, or are you trying to plait a braid, lassie?_ When I finished, the warden nodded in satisfaction and allowed me to accompany during the rest of his round. That morning I splinted a broken arm, tended to the burned hand of an old woman, and placed five more bandages. From then on I was tacitly part of the staff.

vvvvv

Near evening I sat in Mardil's storeroom going over a list, when suddenly the old woman who had brought me my fresh garments in the morning rushed in.

"A visitor for you, love," she said cheerfully, throwing a dark look at the herbmaster, who was filling a jar with camomile blooms and humming under his breath. "Leave this old codger here alone and come with me. He is waiting in the gardens."

Curious, I followed her up the long stairway and out of the building. She guided me to the western side of the Houses; a high wall, elegantly engraved, crowned the hill and offered a view of the Mindolliun.

Close by the wall a man stood motionless, a black silhouette. I didn't recognize him right away.

"Hello?" I asked hesitantly. At the sound of my voice, the man turned around and I realized that it was Damrod.

"Good evening!" I smiled and went to him, but when I looked into his face the joy in my heart died away and I was frightened. He was deathly pale and his eyes looked as if all the life in them had drained away.

"I only came to bid you farewell," he said briefly. "The Steward sends the Lord Faramir to Osgiliath, and I go with him."

My blood turned to ice and I shivered.

"Osgiliath?" I said in a low voice. "I...they have told me here that this place was conquered by the superior force of the enemy, and there is practically no chance of retaking it not without a much larger army than this city possesses. This is _suicide." _

"I know." He turned away, and I moved to stand beside him. All I could see was his profile, utterly motionless.

"Could you... could you not stay? You must know, I really care about you, Damrod." I tried to sound casual, and failed miserably.

"I cannot." The deep voice sounded tired but resolute. "I more or less grew up with the son of the Steward. We learned our fencing and archery side by side... the only time Faramir ever got drunk, he was with me." His smile was bleak. "I held his head while he threw up in the horse trough."

He stepped away from the wall.

"I am one of his men," he said simply. "I will follow wherever he goes. Certainly I would like to survive this war, but that is not in my hands. I will not let him down, not like..." He stopped.

I met his eyes, brushing the hair out of my face; the braid that hung down my back had loosened during the day and the breeze swept wisps of my hair, soft as feathers, against my cheeks.

"Like his own father?" I asked quietly.

He looked at me broodingly.

"Obviously there is much talk in the Houses of Healing," he said. Suddenly he reached out and took one of my loose tendrils of hair between two fingers, putting it gently behind my ear.

"I will return if I can." He smiled a little and for a confusing moment his fingers glided down from my ear and rested on my neck, warm against my skin. "You must also be careful, _Noerwen,_ for... I care for you."

He turned and walked away. I stood by the wall watching him until he was out of sight, a maelstrom of regret and fear and terrible rage seething inside me.

I felt driven to do something, something that would stop this whole madness. But what? Could I storm into the throne room of the Kings and confront the Steward to his face, dashing passionate accusation in his face? _You send your son, your own son, to certain death – and for what purpose?_

I bit my lip. I would not be permitted into his presence; Denethor didn't even know that I existed and that was all to the good. It was of no use for me to interfere, and already I feared to disturb the delicate balance of events. There was nothing I could do.

_What was my task in Middle-earth? What was I doing here?_I leaned over one of the fountains that dotted the garden, splashing cool water in my face. Then I loosened my braid and plaited it anew, waiting to regain my composure. At last I went back to the herbmaster, seated myself again behind the writing table.

„Mardil?" I asked. „Do you know anything about elven languages?"

He looked up in surprise, nearly dropping his second bottle for the day – this time a phial of arnica essence.

"Surely, child." he replied, after having placed the small bottle safely in a shelf. "What do you want to know?"

"What does the word _Noerwen_ mean?"

He frowned and murmured under his breath for a moment; then his face brightened.

"That is quite simple," he replied, raising an instructive forefinger. "_Noer_ or _Naur_ is Sindarin for_ fire._ And the suffix _–wen_ means _maiden."_ The blue, childlike eyes examined me with interest. "_Fire Maiden_…how poetic! Did someone give you that name? I think it fits very well."

I smiled sadly and put the quill back into the pot to keep the ink from dripping on my neatly written parchment. "Maybe," I murmured, and ran both hands over my face; suddenly I was very tired. "At least I_ have_ a name again."


	7. For he today that sheds his blood with m...

**7. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me...**

I was very glad that I had found some work to do, even though the Houses of Healing did not have many patients at the moment. But everything was being made ready: heaps of bandages being rolled, and additional beds set up every place there was room. I spent all day the twelfth of March arranging Mardil's storage room, and when I went to bed that night my robe was saturated with the scent of herbs, heady and intense.

The faces around me in the refectory the next morning were wary and troubled. I drank my milk silently, and if there was conversation among any of the healers it was hushed and hesitating.

The first of the wounded from the Rammas were brought to us during the forenoon. Gandalf had escorted the wagons into Minas Tirith, and I caught a brief glimpse of him talking to Oroher, bending down from Shadowfax' back. A whisper among the people spread news that I already knew: the enemy had crossed the river, and threatened the forces of Gondor across the Pelennor. I thought of Faramir and then of Damrod, and my throat grew tight. I knew that Faramir would survive (however wounded) but the book said little about his men. To feel such a great affection for someone whose name appeared on only a single page of Tolkien's book was a bit too much for my peace of mind! But before long I was too busy to think much about it.

The injuries I saw now were frightening... deep gashes and ripped flesh, full of slivers. I worked with the old woman who had awakened me the first morning I was there, caring for a young man who fortunately was almost numb with shock. The old woman - her name, I learned, was Ioreth - sat by the bed holding his hand and speaking softly to him, while I removed small particles of rusty metal from the wound. Then I bound a bandage steeped in herbs to his shoulder and ordered willow bark tea for him against the pain and fever that surely would come... there were no antibiotics to prevent it.

I had no more time to look after him; in the next room an arm required tending - a cruel blow had sliced his flesh just above the elbow. This warrior - a dark-haired giant - was not so lucky as my last patient. He was fully conscious and screaming in agony. Two strong men held him down while Oroher examined the wound and cleaned it. Just as he was about to take needle and thread to sew it up, he was called into another room.

"Can you stitch a wound, Ioreth?" I asked. I was watching the man with some concern; he was struggling in the grip of the two orderlies, arching his back and moaning aloud. "I don't think we should wait…"

She shook her head. "Perhaps ten years ago, love, but not now. My eyes are not what they used to be. You should do it – I am sure you will be much more capable than I am."

She was right; I had learned to put in stitches during my short stint as a first year resident. I accepted my fate, administered the proper dose of poppy juice to the giant, and waited until he lay still at last. Then I washed my hands again, rubbed them with the strong brandy that was used here for disinfectant, and began.

A quarter of an hour later the work was finished. A clean bandage covered the suture, the patient dozed, still half-drugged, and I got up from my little stool next to the bed. For a moment I was lightheaded and Ioreth caught me by the arm, her grip surprisingly strong.

_"Careful_, love!" she said. "What did you eat for breakfast?"

"A glass of milk," I confessed.

"Off you go and eat something at once!" she exclaimed, pushing me out the door. "You have the right touch to care for people; wherever you come from, you have been schooled properly. But you won't be of much use with an empty stomach, and you are needed too much to faint with hunger."

I toddled off obediently to the refectory, and sustained myself with heavy dark bread, cold roast, and apples. Afterward I felt much better; I returned to the sick rooms and found Oroher surveying my suture and bandage, looking well satisfied. He smiled.

"I can really use you," he said. "I don't know when you will begin to remember anything, but your hands seem to have their own memory. If you will assist me, we have a man here whose thigh has been broken by the blow of a mace…"

When I was relieved of duty at last, the afternoon was nearly spent and evening was falling. Outside in the herbal gardens nothing much could be seen; the sky was already dark, and the balsamic scent of the herbs was overlaid with the stench of smoke. What I had heard vaguely in the background off and on during the day, hardly noticing it, could be heard more clearly now – far-off explosions. And when I drew near to the wall, high above the city, I saw with sorrow and rage that the Pelennor was burning.

Refugees were fleeing toward the city gates, peasants from plundered and fired homesteads trying to find security in Gondor's last stronghold. I saw warriors as well, but only a few of them in any kind of marching order; that told me more than I wanted to know about the chaos and terror that must reign near the river and the Rammas Echor.

I tried to see through the smoky darkness; somewhere out there were Faramir and his men, in desperate retreat. And Damrod as well – if he did not fall in Osgiliath. The thought was a cynical, hopeless voice whispering in my ear, and at that moment I heard shrill, deadly screams from the sky.

_Nazgûl! _

I ducked instinctively behind the wall, covering my head with my arms and for a few seconds I was horribly sick. Then I sensed that the evil voices had departed; the ringwraiths flew off toward the river as if they had found other, juicier prey. I got up and dared a look over the wall.

It was exactly as I had read it long ago; Tolkien had recorded the scene like a war correspondent. Here came a troop of men, still marching in some order, and following them a small, terribly small, group of horsemen. Torches flickered along the lines, and the sound of wild screams came to me faintly from the distance. And I saw, as I had seen once before, the black figures of the Nazgul plummeting down upon the refugees. I held my hands against my ears and clenched my teeth, but I could not look away.

And then came the fanfare, short and desperate: down below me the gates opened and the Swan Knights of Dol Amroth galloped forth, racing to meet the hard-pressed warriors. Far in the lead a single shining figure launched himself toward the enemy, his staff held aloft and cutting through the darkness like a beacon.

I turned and ran. I stormed out of the herb gardens into the street, my long robe snatched up away from my pounding feet, passing the empty houses and courtyards through circle after circle of the city. The air grew worse and worse, thick with smoke, as I reached the lower levels. The lowest circle was packed with men, and I leaned against the wall a little to one side, gasping for breath and coughing, and listened as the huge gates grated slowly open on their hinges once more.

The foot-soldiers came first, slow and stumbling, their faces grey as ashes, and not only from the eerie half-darkness that covered the city. I pushed my way through the crowd, trying to see how many of Faramir's men were among them. I saw Mablung far in the front, an ugly slash across his forehead. Two of the Swan Knights came behind, their shining armor marred and dented, and one of them led a lame horse by the reins. Then…

…then Damrod passed by me, head bowed, one arm hanging at an odd angle from his shoulder.

_"Damrod!"_

His name burst from my mouth in a mixture of relief and horror, sounding like an explosion in the numb silence. Damrod's head jerked up and he looked all around, searching, until our eyes met. Then he whispered something hastily to the man beside him, and stepped out of line to walk slowly over to me. I reached out for him, and his uninjured right hand closed around my fingers before he suddenly drew me close and held me in a half embrace. For a brief moment his forehead sank down upon my shoulder and I could feel a convulsive shudder running through him. Then he stepped back, but without releasing my hand.

Now the horsemen came, a few of them with great banners in their hands, the colours nearly unidentifiable in the dark. I heard the clatter of hooves on stone, the jangling of horses' harness and the creaking of leather saddles, but there were no shouts of welcome, no cheers. The crowd stood silent. And we stood side by side, Damrod and I, and watched the prince of Dol Amroth ride into the city, a high, beautiful figure on his tall horse, and we saw who he held in his arms.

And a voice cried out, shrill with lamentation.

_"Faramir!"_

I clung with all my strength to Damrod's sound hand, and he winced. Then he loosened my fingers, gently, and drew me to him a second time, and I returned his embrace, hiding my face against the cool armor of his chest. The people of Minas Tirith burst into tears around us, crying aloud and calling Faramir's name over and over, and I clenched my teeth, shuddering. Damrod stood stockstill, watching, listening, and turning to look after the prince, easing me gently to one side. The crowd broke up, silent once more, creeping home with bowed heads and tired, desperate faces.

"I should follow them up to the Citadel." Damrod said.

_"Nonsense!"_ My voice came out sharp and angry. "You will be little use to the son of the Steward in your present state. Your arm looks as if it's broken."

"I don't think so." he said with a grimace. "I have sensed it, and I think the bone is still in order."

"Ah… then you are not only a warrior but also a healer, hm?" I took his healthy arm and drew him with soft force with me.

"No, but it is not my first wound in battle, you know! I know what a broken bone feels like."

"Excellent," I said. "And I know how to splint a broken bone. And since I do know that, I will take you now to the Houses of Healing, where we will care for your arm and also give you a proper meal. I think you are badly in need of both."

"I will grant you that," he said, and sighed. He was silent as I guided him slowly up to the sixth circle of the city and through the dark gardens to the Houses of Healing. Ioreth met us in the vestibule.

"There you are at last, love – I had begun to worry about you!"

She looked at Damrod with a frown. "Are the warriors back from Osgiliath?" she asked in sudden comprehension. "Have… have many fallen? How is the Lord Faramir?"

"He has been hurt, Ioreth," I said before Damrod could answer. "They have taken him to his father."

Her face seemed to grow more aged even as I looked at her, but then she saw that my companion was also wounded. I could see how she struggled for composure; finally she succeeded and in that moment I forgave her every moment of garrulity she had subjected me to in the past two days.

We took Damrod into one of the examining rooms, and together we managed to free him from his armor and peel off the leather doublet he wore underneath. He wasn't able to help us much, but Ioreth was quick to find the right buckles and buttons. At last there was only a thin linen shirt, and since he could not lift his arm, Ioreth gave me a pair of scissors and I cut the cloth carefully away from his shoulder. I could see the shoulder joint clearly under his skin, but in the wrong place, and when I palpated the surrounding area I could feel how it was misaligned.

"You were quite right, my friend," I said. The bone is not broken, but your shoulder is dislocated."

Ioreth went out and came back a moment later with a clay jar, a mug, and a sturdy orderly – one of the men who had held down the mighty warrior whose wound I had stitched earlier in the day.  
"Brandy," she said briskly. She poured a great shot of it in the mug and handed it to Damrod. "Drink up, and then Alandel here will hold on to you so Noerwen can put that joint back in place."

Damrod stared at her in perplexity. His gaze wandered over to the brawny orderly and then to me. He threw back his head and emptied the mug in a single gulp, then gasped for breath and coughed.

"I brought you here to be cared for," he said hoarsely. "What has happened, these last three days? Have you overthrown the warden and taken over the governance of the Houses of Healing?"

I laughed softly. "No," I said. "But we discovered that there a few things I am capable of doing."

"Very capable indeed!" Ioreth interjected.

Damrod gazed at me with doubt in his eyes. I gave him a smile as companionable as possible and rolled the long grey sleeves up.

"I hope you had enough brandy," I said, "for I'm afraid this is going to hurt."

I was right, of course; it _did_ hurt, but he bore it. Alandel held him still, and I saw how the sweat broke out on them both when I pulled as hard as I could on the dislocated arm. I bit my lip and concentrated, praying that I could still manage the maneuver. I twisted the arm sharply to the left and felt with a sigh of relief how the ball of the joint snapped back into place.

Damrod took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off his brow, managing a wan smile at me. I sat down weakly, my knees as shaky as his must have been. Then I pulled together the shreds of my professional dignity and cleared my throat.

"I will give you an ointment to massage into the shoulder joint," I said. "Alandel will help you with your doublet."

The orderly slid the leather doublet over his head, gentle with the injured shoulder, and fastened the buckles on the side. He gave a quick bow and slipped out of the room. I took a few strips of bandage and fashioned them into a sling.

"You should be careful with that arm for the next few days, Damrod," I said.

"That may prove a bit difficult in the midst of a war," he said with wry humor. His gaze didn't leave my face while I knotted the sling around his neck. I took his arm and positioned it carefully in the sling, my hand resting for a moment on his skin. It was warm and vibrant under my fingers, and I wanted suddenly to stroke his arm, run my palm along the muscular strength of it…

"I know you will not have much time to heal," I said softly. "But I would be glad all the same, if you could come out of this safe and whole, Damrod of Ithilien."

"And I would be glad to come back and find you here again, Noerwen," he replied, and for a sweet, tingling moment he laid his hand over mine. "But now I must go to the quarters of the Guard."

He smiled down at me; then he let go of my hand and turned quickly away, out the door. I stood for a moment in the middle of the room, staring at the empty doorway, before I began slowly winding up the rest of the bandages.

"Splendid figure of a man!" Ioreth's jaunty voice came suddenly from behind my back, and I started violently. I'd had no idea that she was still in the room. "And if my old eyes don't deceive me, you have set him well aflame with the fire on your head…"

_"Old gossip!"_ I snapped, and felt my face turn red. I darted out of the room, her high-pitched giggle following me halfway down the hallway.

Before I went to bed, I walked out again to the city wall. The sky was midnight black now, and far away fires flickered near the half-destroyed Rammas Echor. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

This was not the time to rack my brain about what I was doing here. At this moment I knew the reason beyond any doubt: I had clever hands and the medical knowledge to be of service in the dreadful time that lay ahead for this oppressed city. I could consider what other reason there might be when the battle was over.

For a while I was part of this story; I was allowed to play some part in it. And unlike the men who now perhaps lay sleepless in their beds, wondering what the next few days might bring, I knew exactly what was coming. I thought of the wounded Faramir lying in fevered sleep in the Citadel with his father brooding beside him, of Peregrin who did his duty among strangers, only half understanding what was required of him… he must feel endlessly alone now! And I thought of the Ring Bearer: if I remembered the course of events properly, he was lying at this moment in the Orc Tower of Cirith Ungol, a terrified captive.

_Be with him_, I prayed. _Give him courage. I know You have chosen him, but You let him pay a high price for accepting his burden so humbly._

And suddenly I remembered sitting in a darkened theatre while an actor spoke cadenced, classical lines onstage, lines that seemed strangely perfect here, where I stood on the wall of Minas Tirith on the eve of a cruel siege. The words that had moved me so deeply then came back to me without effort, and I spoke them to the air -

_"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,  
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,  
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,  
And crowns for convoy put into his purse  
We would not die in that man's company  
That fears his fellowship to die with us."_

"That's good."

I recognized the voice at once and spun around. Gandalf stood behind me, a white spectre in the darkness. A breath of night wind stirred the hair of his beard.

"Thank you, Lord," I said, surprised. "A poet of our world wrote that, a man of the Pengolodh's own country, and he tells the tale of a King speaking to his army on the Eve of a great battle."

"Indeed?" Gandalf took a step closer. "And was his situation as desperate as ours is?"

"I don't remember," I confessed. "But the enemy had the greater force of arms."

"Then in that, at least, the circumstances are alike," Gandalf said dryly. "You should go to bed, Noerwen. Oroher sings your praises in Westron, Rohirric and Sindarin, all three, but you are only of use if you are well-rested, child."

It was the first time he had used the name Damrod had given me, and the fact that he called me "child" moved me deeply.

"I'll go back soon, only a moment more," I promised. "Good night, Lord."

"Good night to you, Noerwen."

I heard his steps moving slowly away, and I was stirred by admiration and deep pity; I could hardly measure the burden he had borne on his shoulders for such a long time. I stared out once more on the Pelennor, where the enemy approached closer and closer to the walls of the city. At this moment I was not afraid; a fragile, wondrous peace and courage held me up, and I spoke the quotation slowly and quietly to its end, without pathos, but filled with calm and steady confidence.

_"But we in it shall be remembered...  
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;  
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me  
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,  
This day shall gentle his condition;  
Make him a member of the gentry, even if he is a commoner.  
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed  
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,  
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks  
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."_

* from _„Henry V."_ by William Shakespeare/ The speech of the King on the Eve of Saint Crispin's Day and the Battle of Agincourt


	8. The burning city

**Warning: **if anyone should have wondered why there is a R-Rating, this chapter was the main reason. There is a very violent scene included;someone who doesn't want to read something like this, should avoid this chapter.

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_Personal note:_ Thank you to everyone who was yet patient enough to follow this strange story, and who encouraged me to move on - especially _cymoria, Kerla, Sweet A.K, Chibi-Kaz, rabidsamfan_ (and of course all the wonderful ladies in my LJ!!) and _Khaelen Coulson._ THIS MEANS THE WORLD TO ME! Hold on - the story will be finished soon (only four chapters still to come...)

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**8. A burning City**

The siege started near morning, but there was no dawn. The darkness faded to grey, and what woke me was not the light of day but a weird sound I could not identify at once: a dull rumbling like thunder that seemed to emerge from the depths of the earth. I sat up slowly and stared out the window. Now they are coming, I thought. Now it begins.

Breakfast was eaten in silence, a hasty, joyless business. I guessed that, like me, the men and women serving in the Houses of Healing were thankful for the daily routine that kept their hands and minds occupied. The enemy massed before the city and the ruined Pelennor swarmed with orks, but temperatures had to be taken nonetheless… a labyrinth of deep trenches was dug within sight of the city, and siege towers were dragged close to the walls, but we had no time to wring our hands at approaching disaster. We changed bandages, and I saved two glasses of chamomile blooms before they could slip out of Mardil's hands, while he expounded to me on the virtues of lady's mantle.

The day dragged by with agonizing slowness. Now and again people came to tell us what was happening: the trenches near the city were burning now, though no one understood quite how they had been set aflame. The black tent camps of the enemy were springing up in horrifying numbers. The gardens were no refuge anymore. They were high enough to keep the air halfway fresh, but the oily stench of smoke was everywhere by now, settling into all our garments, and even closing the windows didn't keep it out.

In the late afternoon I saw Oroher with a man in the Black and Silver of the Citadel; the warden was angry, ranting furiously at his companion. Then he snatched up his cloak and disappeared for about an hour; when he returned he was silent and very pale. He retired into his study, unapproachable, but after a while he came out again and went about his work as if nothing were wrong. Later Ioreth told me, whispering, that he had tried to convince the Steward to give his son into the care of the healers. Denethor had barely listened to him, dismissing him abruptly.

Now the first corpses were carried up to us, most of them slain by the debris of houses shattered by projectiles from the siege towers. We arranged the dead as decently as possible, making shrouds of blankets and carrying them into a deep, empty cellar. Oroher sent everyone he could spare down to the first Circle of the city, where more and more fires were spreading. The siege towers were flinging strange, flaming balls over the city wall – I guessed that they probably contained phosphorus, or something of the sort – and the damage they did was disastrous.

And all day the Nazgul flew over the city, mostly invisible… only their horrifying voices could be heard. From time to time one of them plummeted out of the darkened sky, not really attacking, but that was hardly necessary. Where the voices of the Nazgul rose, the men of Minas Tirith lost their courage: exhausted helpers stared hopelessly at the roaring flames, and sturdy warriors who had survived dozens of battles, dropped their weapons and turned to flight, crying like children.

Gandalf did what the Steward had been unwilling even to try: he rode without rest from Circle to Circle, encouraging the desperate defenders. I saw him only once, when he brought three men, seriously burned, to the Houses of Healing. He dismounted briefly and exchanged a few words with Oroher, then swung himself back on Shadowfax. I grabbed a jar of water and a mug, calling his name.

"Gandalf!"

He turned in my direction, and I hurried over to where he waited before the gate, handing him the filled mug. He drank thirstily, and when he handed back the mug our hands brushed against each other. I looked into his eyes, filled with an overwhelming weariness, and forced myself to smile. He smiled back very faintly; then suddenly he bowed down to me and the white beard swept over my shoulder as he spoke close to my ear.

"If our shield brothers do not come soon, we are lost," he said softly. "Without Rohan, this city will not stand another day. I know you said Sauron would fall…but will Minas Tirith survive to celebrate the victory?"

I nodded, and for a precious moment the exhaustion that nearly paralyzed me was lifted from my shoulders. This time my smile had more potency, and it was mirrored in the wizard's deep eyes.

"Tomorrow, by the rising of the sun," I whispered. I felt the pressure of his hand; then he whirled Shadowfax around and rushed down the empty street like a wind out of the north.

Hardly anyone slept that night in the Houses of Healing. Those who had burns needed tending through the night, and the ceaseless bombardment of the walls made a dull thunder that forbade rest of body or mind. None of the projectiles had reached the sixth circle as yet, but water buckets stood ready to put out the fires when it should become necessary. Near midnight Alandel made a daring foray to the front city wall; when he returned he told us in horror about a giant battering ram being brought up before the gate. If that were not enough, he said that Mumakil were pulling even more siege towers up to the city walls. I didn't want to imagine what the situation must be close to the gate, where the few defenders faced a terrible superiority of forces.

Shortly before what should have been morning – but again there was no dawn worthy of the name – a sharp tremor shook the city._ "The gate! They have broken the gate!" _came desperate screams from the street. I rushed outside. Black smoke rolled up from the first Circle of the city, engulfed in flames. The smoke and fire blocked my view of what was happening near the gate, and to an extent I was relieved. I ran to the wall, where several people were already standing, old women for the most part, wringing their hands in terror. Suddenly a cold wind rose, tearing apart the clouds of smoke, and I could see a silvery streak near the horizon, breaking up the deadly gloom. I stared out across the plain, over the armies of Mordor, hardly daring to breathe – and then there was a resounding of scores of horns, deep and hoarse like the lurs of the ancient Vikings. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

_The sun was rising – and Rohan had arrived at last._

*****

Barely an hour later I saw a man on a litter being carried to the main entry. A man in the uniform of the Guard stood near-by, his face grave, and someone else as well, much smaller…

_Pippin._

So Denethor was dead; this must be Faramir, saved at the last moment from the madness of his own father. I wanted to go to Pippin, but Faramir must come first. Sturdy aides lifted the litter and carried it into one of the sickrooms. When I came in, Oroher was already there, kneeling beside him with a hand on his brow.

"He has a high fever," he said. "Best get him out of those clothes and wrap him in wet packs. Noerwen, go down to Mardil, please, and ask for whatever draughts and herbs he has against fever."

I hurried into the storeroom, explaining to Mardil what I needed and for whom. There was no sign of his usual absent-mindedness this time; he sorted out glasses and boxes with lightning speed, and in a few minutes I was in the refectory ordering a tea brewed from the strongest herbal mixture he had been able to find. Soon after that I was in the sickroom again, with a phial of peppermint oil and a pile of clean towels.

Faramir had been stripped of his clothing and bathed. Containers stood ready with cold water from a deep well; I poured in the peppermint and we wrapped his arms and legs in the cold damp towels, covering him with woolen blankets. I fetched the tea and we got the healing brew down him drop by drop, unconscious though he was, Oroher massaging his throat gently to help him swallow. The Captain of Gondor was horrifyingly weak, and his body seemed to be burning up where it lay.

Finally I put mug and spoon aside; I sat looking into the pale, still face, now washed clean of grim. My heart ached with pity and remorse: perhaps it would have been better to put all caution aside and at least warn Gandalf.

I rose and gathered up Faramir's garments. They were full of ashes and soaked with a sweet-smelling oil; the odor made my stomach turn. I tossed them in a basket by the door and wiped my hands on my apron. As I started down the hallway, I saw Gandalf coming, carrying someone small and slight as a child. But he was not a child, I knew that at once, though I had never seen him before.

_This was Merry._

His white robes swirling around his ankles, the wizard disappeared into a room two doors down the corridor, leaving his companion standing outside: a small figure in the uniform of the Citadel who leaned exhausted against the wall, his head bowed. I felt a rush of compassion and fellow-feeling – here is someone else who feels lost.

"Master _Perian?"_ I asked softly.

He stiffened and looked up at me. I saw a pleasing face with hazel eyes, crowned with a tousled mop of curly hair the color of oak leaves in autumn. He looked like one who normally enjoyed life to the fullest, but now the corners of his mouth were pulled down with distress, and his cheeks were pale and stained with tears.

"They will take good care of your friend, little master," I assured him. "Perhaps you would like something to eat in the meantime? It is easier to keep vigil with something in your stomach."

His eyes brightened for a moment when I mentioned food – a hobbit, indeed. Then he shot a doubtful gaze at the closed door.

"You can do nothing for him now. And you will be of more help when you are feeling better yourself."

He pondered that argument carefully while I stood patiently waiting. Then a tentative smile curled the corners of his mouth and he bowed with astonishing grace.

"You are very kind. With whom do I have the honour of speaking?"

"Noerwen, worker in the Houses of Healing." I returned the bow, not nearly so gracefully, and the weak smile flashed for an instant into a roguish grin. It vanished quickly, however, and he looked once more at the door.

"Peregrin Took from the Shire, at your service," he said absent-mindedly. Then he looked at me doubtfully. "And you have no idea where that is, of course."

"Quite to the contrary, Master Peregrin Took," I said, and for the first time on this gloomy day my heart lightened. "I have a very good idea where it is. But I would be delighted to learn more, if you don't mind telling me."

I guided him down to the refectory. In the vestibule were several big basins, small crocks of herbal soap and clean towels. Pippin washed hands and face properly, but to my astonishment (and secret delight) he finished the procedure by pouring half a jar of water over his head. He spluttered and shook himself, sending drops of water flying in all directions.

"That was fine," he said, taking a deep breath. "And I must admit I would be very glad of something to eat now!"

I found a place for us to sit near the big front window, overlooking the green slopes of Mt. Mindolluin. The smoke was not visible from here, and the battle could be ignored for a few blessed moments. I got Pippin a glass of wine, thinned with water, and a bowl of walnuts and four small meat pastries from a platter that was still nearly full: hardly anyone had yet found time to eat today.

"At home we'd say, _'Enough for a hollow tooth'_," he remarked with a smile, inspecting the rations. "Aren't you going to eat something? I'd rather have some company with my breakfast."

I helped myself to some grape juice, two apples and another meat pastry. When I returned to the table, nothing was left of his pastries and he was cracking nuts, looking very much better, his cheeks rosy from the wine. We shared our meal in companionable silence, and I left my second apple for him. I watched him bite into it, my chin propped on my hands; the situation seemed unreal, and yet I was amazingly at ease. To meet the men of Middle Earth was one thing, but now Pippin sat across from me, his legs too short to reach the floor from the man-sized chair. Pippin the Hobbit: real. _Miraculously, marvelously real._

I looked away before he could notice my blatant stare. By now he had cleaned his plate down to the last crumb. Without the meal to distract him, his open, friendly face turned somber; he seemed to make up his mind about something and swallowed hard, looking me in the eye.

"I'm afraid Merry will die," he said in a low voice.

"Your friend?" Once again the urge to bend the truth gave me a pang of conscience.

"He's my cousin," he said. "I've known him since I began to walk – we were the terror of our aunts."

"I can well believe it," I said dryly, and was rewarded with a small grin.

"I have seen men die already," he continued. "In Moria – when Gandalf fell." He glanced up at me, uncertain. "Maybe that doesn't count, really, for he came back. But Boromir was really killed: he tried to defend Merry and me, and the Uruk-Hai slew him before our eyes…"

"I am so sorry," I said softly, but he continued as if he didn't hear me.

"And now Merry lies up there… he doesn't recognize me any more, and as I was trying to get him here, he asked me if I was going to bury him! And –"

He was struggling to keep his composure, his lips trembling.

"— and Lord Denethor went mad right before my eyes." He bowed his head, swallowed. "He tried to burn himself, and Faramir as well, and his son is still alive – what kind of father would do such a thing? Heavens, all I want to do is go_ home!"_

The last words were almost a moan, and he hid his face in his hands. I longed to touch him, to comfort him, and I didn't dare: he might be small, but he was not a child. He was a man, trying not to weep before me, and the only thing I could do for him was to let him keep his dignity.

"You will go home, and your cousin too," I said. "He will not die."

He raised his head to look at me. "You are very kind." His voice was tired, faltering. "Thank you. I'd better go upstairs again now; I don't want to leave Merry alone."

I guided him back to the sickrooms, and we didn't say any more. He slipped into Merry's room, turning back for a moment to raise his hand and give me the ghost of a smile. Then the door closed behind him.

*****

The little time with Pippin was the only thing to warm my heart that day, but the effect passed away quickly, for now we suffered the full aftermath of the battle. Wounded men flooded in and we did our best to care for their injuries, but soon we had to turn away those with only minor wounds. We had to save the space for those who were too badly hurt to stand, and those whose injuries demanded constant observation.

And now I watched men die. At first the worst ones were those who screamed, their voices growing weaker and weaker until at last, dreadfully, they were silent. But as the day waned, more and more were brought in who did not scream, and we learned to fear them. These were the victims of the Black Breath: when they arrived they were generally still conscious and did not seem to be severely wounded, but then they fell into a deathly sleep, their foreheads burning with fever and their limbs ice cold. They sank deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, until they slid over into death. There was nothing we could do for them; we could only stand by and watch them die.

I saw young men die, hardly more than adolescents, from the south of Gondor. Nothing had prepared them for this horror, battling the vile creatures of Sauron. After a few hours I learned to keep up my defenses, to shield myself somewhat against the misery, the sorrow and pain. It was necessary to keep a little distance, or I would have sat down and wept with pity, and been of no use to anyone.

I saw Eowyn carried past, silent and beautiful, a blanket pulled up to her chin. I watched Faramir sinking deeper and deeper into deadly dreams. I sewed up gaping wounds and patched together the scalp of one of the Swan Knights – an axe blow had nearly torn the skin from his head, and at that he was lucky to be alive. The day dragged on and I struggled to keep going, my sleeves rolled up above my elbows and my apron stained with blood. When I stole a moment to glance at the other healers, I could see they were as badly off as I was myself. And when the bells began to ring, and messengers came running up from the lower Circles to spread the good news that the ships of the Corsairs, sailing up the river, had not brought more enemies but instead an army of allies and a warrior who bore a black banner, embroidered with stars, all I could manage was a tired smile.

What remained most clearly in my memory was the Horseman of Rohan I was caring for when evening drew near. There was nothing any of us could do to help him. His arms and legs were bandaged, and the healers had placed a covering of thin gauze over the terrible wound in his belly; it was too deep to bandage and too mangled to sew up. His time was nearly up, and we all knew it. I went into his room to be with him in his last moments, but also to be out of the hubbub for a few moments.

I sat beside his bed, holding his hand between both of mine and fighting against sleep, while he bled to death inside. Once or twice my eyes closed and I dozed off.

I was startled awake when the dying man grew restless, tossing his head from side to side and muttering. The rays of the setting sun struck through the half-open casements, washing the room in light the color of rubies, and I bent down to listen to him, but I couldn't understand, at first, what he was trying to say. I laid my hand against his cheek and smoothed the tousled hair, pale as straw, that had worked loose from his long braids. At first this seemed to comfort him, but then he began again to whisper, becoming more agitated, and I put my ear close to his mouth.

_"Moder…"_ he said faintly, his voice choked and hoarse._ "Moder… Moder…"_

I hadn't noticed that someone had come into the room behind me, until I saw an embroidered sleeve and white hair from the corner of my eye. I spoke without turning around.

"He is dying, Gandalf, and I can't make out what he's trying to say. Can you help me?"

The wizard came closer, listening, and then he sighed. "He is calling for his mother." He said. „Many of them do that when they die."

"I know. He is certainly not the first one today." My voice sounded unnecessarily brusque; I saw how Gandalf looked at me and closed my eyes, ashamed. "I am sorry, Lord. It is only that I—"

"I know." He smiled sadly. "You are certainly not the only one today."

"I wish I could help him," I said. "But I don't speak his language. That he must die alone, without help…"

"He is not alone," Gandalf replied. "You are with him, are you not?"

_"Moder…"_ The voice of the warrior came again. He gasped for breath, and once more I caressed his cheek.

"Repeat what I say," Gandalf ordered abruptly. He spoke a few words, hard, light syllables, the sound strange and familiar at the same time. I said them again and again in a low voice until I was sure I could pronounce them correctly. Then I leaned once more over the dying man.

_"Eagan xine beluctu, sunu min, ond on sibbe sweftu…" _I whispered. The effect was astonishing; the man lay still and bent his head to one side as if listening eagerly to a familiar, beloved voice. His agonized face relaxed into a smile of relief.

_"Moder…"_ he murmured once more. I kissed his brow and felt his last, heavy breath across my face. Slowly I pushed myself to my feet and faced Gandalf, still holding on to the hand of the dead man.

"What did I say to him?" I asked.

Gandalf bowed his head. "You spoke Rohirric, his native tongue. You said,_ 'Close your eyes, my son, and sleep in peace.'"_

*****

Gandalf went out, and I left a few minutes later. The dead warrior of Rohan was carried away, and I went over to Faramir. He lay absolutely still and I felt, watching him, that his time, too, was running out. Ioreth stood by his bed, her old face anxious and full of sorrow.

"Lord Gandalf was here a moment ago," she said. "I told him I wished there was still a King in Gondor: the Kings had hands of healing, so the old stories say. And he gave me a sharp look and said, 'Men shall remember your words, Ioreth.' And then he said something about strange rumours running through the city, but I have heard nothing of them! When I looked again, he was gone."

_Naturally! Gandalf knew that Aragorn had come._

"I'll go meet him," I said decidedly. Suddenly I couldn't bear the narrow boundaries of the Houses another minute. After a look at my face, Ioreth made no attempt to dissuade me.

"Take care of yourself," she said. "Don't leave the city; the battle field is still dangerous, I'm sure."

I grabbed a cloak and hastily gathered up some bandages, in case they were needed. Then I hurried away through the gardens and out into the street as fast as I could walk.

For the first time in two days I saw more of the city than just the sixth Circle. The houses and gardens of the upper levels were relatively untouched, but as I went down toward the gate, the damage got worse and worse. The second Circle was rubble for the most part, and the carnage near the main gate was beyond description. The dead lay everywhere: warriors of Gondor, Swan Knights of Dol Amroth, Southrons and Orks in ghastly, bloody confusion. The battle was only just over, and there had not been time as yet to bring order out of the dreadful chaos.

I picked my way among the bodies and passed through the gate, or at least what was left of it. The great metal panels hung crazily on their hinges: this was where the Witch King had blasted his way into the city with his evil magic and Gandalf had held him back, until the horns of Rohan sounded on the field and ended the contest of more-than-human power.

Now the road to the Pelennor lay before me. It had been partially cleared, to allow the transport of the wounded, I supposed, but the fields and meadows round about were still littered with bodies, thousands of them, both friend and foe. A stench rose from the battlefield, foully sweet, and bitterly I regretted that I had not brought a handkerchief and some oil of arnica or peppermint, to cover my nose. I looked all around, the light hazy and indistinct, but I could not see Gandalf or Aragorn anywhere.

Better go back. Wandering around among the corpses seemed anything but a good idea, and I turned my back on the Pelennor, pausing to look once more at the battered gate. Minas Tirith had escaped destruction by a hair's breadth.

There was a sudden noise behind me, something scraping against the ground, and then heavy panting. Before I could turn around, something hit my upper arm with terrible force.

The pain was unendurable. I screamed and fell to my knees, then the ground rushed toward me and everything went black. It only lasted for a few seconds, and this fact saved my life.

I pushed myself up on my uninjured arm, spitting out dirt and grass. From the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light on metal – _a knife!_ I flung myself away, falling clumsily on my back, and the knife blade drove into the ground beside my head. I gazed up at my attacker.

_One of the Southrons_, I thought… he was too big for an orc and somehow too – _human_. I couldn't imagine where he had sprung from so suddenly; probably he had been struck down and left for dead, but I had not time to curse my misfortune. With a grunt he yanked the knife blade out of the ground and threw himself upon me with his full weight. A heavy hand in a metal gauntlet pressed against my upper arm, right where the blow had landed. Burning agony washed over me and the world went blurry before my eyes again.

I dared not lose consciousness again; to faint was to die. His head was close before my face, encased in a steel helmet that completely hid his features. Desperately I jerked my good arm free and thrust my fingers into the small sight holes. His head jolted back reflexively and I gasped for breath and tried to squirm away from him.

He loosened his hold on my arm, but he still kept a tight grip on me, staring down at my face and body. Plainly he was realizing for the first time that I was not a man. A dull growl came from under the helmet, and suddenly he grabbed my neckline and ripped both robe and underdress wide open, nearly down to my navel. I opened my mouth to scream, but he clamped his hand across it and pinned me to the ground, digging the fingers of his other hand with brutal force into my left breast.

I moaned, staring up at him helplessly. A quiet, strangely objective voice spoke inside my head. _Not only will he kill you, he will rape you first! And what are you going to do about it?_ I felt sick with horror, but before panic rendered me totally defenseless a thought crossed my mind, as objective as the voice. _He needed two free hands to do that! Where is the knife?_

He must have dropped it, and I had to find it. Suddenly my mind was clear and ice cold. I let my body go limp and my head sink back. He was right-handed, so the knife had to lie somewhere to my left, and my left arm was unhurt. I reached out and began to feel along the ground. My tormentor, encouraged by my passivity, loosened his grip on my breast and started to push my robe up above my legs. Then, with a quick move, he took off his helmet.

He was olive-skinned with dark eyes and long dark hair that fell in many small braids over his shoulders. His beard was neatly trimmed, and under different circumstances, I would not have thought him repulsive. Now, however, he embodied everything I had learned to hate. He ran his eyes over my body and his panting breath came faster as he began deliberately, impudently, to feel me over.

I shut my eyes and prayed that I would find the knife in time. He pressed his mouth against mine and forced my lips open. It took all my resolution to hold still, to resist the urge to bite down on his tongue with all my strength. He lifted his head and gave a hoarse laugh, sure of his prey. Then, his right hand lying on my breast without pressure, he began to loosen the lacing of his breeches.

I pushed myself a little to the left and reached out as far as I could. At last my hand found the hilt of the knife, and my fingers closed around it. I made a small, involuntary sound of relief, but he was too distracted to notice. He pushed my legs farther apart. _Wait… wait…_ His body tensed to complete his triumph, his head tilted back. _Now._

I swung my arm around, the tip of the knife straight up. His neck above the chest armor was unprotected, and the razor-sharp blade slid smoothly through skin, flesh and cartilage, slitting his throat.

He remained motionless for a few endless seconds, a strange gargling sound coming from his mouth. Then he collapsed on top of me. I felt a fine mist of blood drops spraying over my naked skin with each of his laborious gasps. Finally he lay still.

With a choking scream I dropped the knife and shoved him off me with a last, desperate burst of strength. Propping myself once more on the wounded arm, I crawled a metre or two away from him, before I sank to the ground with my eyes closed, shivering from head to toe, the ragged remnants of my robe soaked with the blood of the man I had just killed.


	9. My heart in your hands

**9. My heart in your hands**

I lay helpless on the ground for several minutes, unable to focus on a coherent thought. At last I pushed myself up to a sitting position and felt cautiously at my injured upper arm.

It was an open wound. My exploring fingertips encountered something hard – pointy – and a wave of nausea rolled over me; the pain was excruciating and I heard my own voice, faint and far away, screaming… Darkness seemed to rise up from the ground to engulf me, and for a while I knew nothing more.

When I came to myself, I was lying on my back, and the first stars were visible against a pale evening sky. The cool inner voice that had saved my life already today spoke again, soft and urgent. _Get up,_ it said. _You have to go, and quickly. Get up!_

I lay still, imagining myself marching up the winding road to the Houses of Healing, through the five circles of the city, my arm ripped open, my robe in tatters, caked in my own blood and in blood which was – not my own. I would never manage it, _never_.

But the voice was adamant. _You will manage it. You must! Get up!  
_  
It took several attempts, falling back to the ground gasping and, after a moment, trying again, but at last I stood on my feet. My legs trembled miserably, but they did not fold under me. Awkwardly, with one hand, I dragged the damp, wrinkled cloak around myself and managed to close a few of the clasps. Then I turned toward the destroyed gate and began to walk, my steps wavering and unsure.

_"Help me…" _I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice. _"Help me… I cannot… help me…"_

And then I heard hoofbeats, the sound dull on the soft ground. I turned around, blinking in disbelief.

It was only a single horseman, carrying a small torch. I waited silently, and when he got near I knew who it was. I tried to call to him, but no sound came out of my mouth; even so he turned his head, and our eyes met.

_"Damrod!"_ I said hoarsely. And even now, in such a moment, I could feel my face relax into a wide smile. He smiled back, surprised, and then he was beside me.

"Noerwen! What are you doing here -- this is no place for you! Come, get up, and I'll take you back to the Houses of Healing." He reached for me, but I didn't move. The sudden burst of exhilaration was gone and I was horribly aware of my misery, my nakedness under the skimpy protection of my ruined cloak. His eyes narrowed and his smile faded away.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't mount so easily," I said. "I' m hurt, Damrod."

"Hurt?" His voice was sharp with concern. "What…"

"My arm." With my good hand I fumbled the pleats of my cloak away from my wound. "It's broken."

Quick as thought he was out of the saddle; he pushed the base of the torch into the soft ground and helped me to sit down. Then, very carefully, he took hold of my arm and turned it to the light. His hands were gentle, but even so the pain brought tears to my eyes and I clenched my teeth, not to cry out.

"That has an evil look," he said quietly, and I was thankful for his matter-of-fact tone of voice. "How did it happen?"

"I… I just came down here, only a little while ago, and I was actually on my way back… and then I was attacked from behind. The… the man tried to stab me, and he… we… there was rather a wild skirmish. I got hold of the knife and.. . I killed him."

"Where?"

"Over there." I pointed vaguely. "Not far; a few metres, perhaps."

He shot a sharp glance at me, laying his hand on my shoulder briefly. Then he pulled the torch out of the ground and went a few steps into the darkness. I could see him bend down and examine something on the ground, before he turned around and returned. His face was hard.

"A Southron, with beard and braids? And you cut his throat?"

I nodded. The memory made me choke; crude hands feeling my body and then blood, a horrible rain of blood that sprayed all over me as he died…

"I could lift you into the saddle, and lead the horse," he said hesitatingly, and I saw that he was avoiding my gaze. _He knew. It was obvious, of course: my ripped garments, and the state of the Southron's clothes._ My face burned with shame, and of a sudden the very fact that I was ashamed of what had nearly been done to me, filled me with rage. I lifted my chin and met his eyes, the hand of my uninjured arm clenched into a fist.

"No, he did _not_ rape me!" The words were bitter as gall in my mouth, and I spat them out savagely. "That's what you want to know, isn't it? It's what he had in mind, naturally – he tore the clothes off my body and it was a near thing, but fortunately he forgot his knife. I had it in my hand before he remembered it again, and I used it! And may Iluvatar help me, for I have never killed a human being before in my entire life…"

I swallowed hard.

"And now I will see his face before my eyes every night when I close my eyes to sleep, and the very thought makes me sick." My voice failed, and it was my turn to look away.

"Noerwen, I am so sorry." Damrod's voice was soft. "I would hold you in front of me in the saddle, only… perhaps you would rather not have a man touch you. That is why I thought you might want to ride alone."

I stared at him. His eyes were full of sorrow and pity, and the tears welled up in my own eyes. I forced back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm me and made myself smile. Not much of a smile, perhaps, wry and trembling, but it was the best I could manage.

"I would be very grateful for your support, for I am truly in need of it right now" I said. My voice sounded strange, high and thin.

Then he was beside me, lifting me effortlessly into the saddle and mounting behind me, cautious not to jar my wounded arm. The horse began walking slowly, and we rode through what remained of the city gate. Soon we had left most of the corpses behind and the foul stench faded a little, but I could still smell blood and smoke and the bitter aftertaste of death on his battered chain mail, and even on my own body.

_The smell of war_.

I felt oddly tranquil and the pain in my arm was only a dull throb, as long as I didn't move it. But my left breast hurt badly and an image flashed before my inner eye: _a hard face with greedy eyes looming over me, a hard, unloving hand digging into the sensitive flesh with all its might…_ I searched for the arm that loosely encircled my waist and found another hand. It turned and closed around my icy fingers, warm and comforting, and the image faded away.

By the time we reached the Houses of Healing, I had sunk into a daze. Vaguely I heard voices raised near me, sounding frightened and shocked, but very far away. I felt myself lifted down from the horse and carried; the clean, fresh scent of the herb garden reached my nostrils and I inhaled gratefully, and then I was lying on a bed in one of the surgery rooms. As if it had been waiting for me, the pain returned, shooting through my whole body. I whimpered and my eyes flew open. There were candles everywhere, and Oroher leaned over me, pale and frowning; close on my other side Ioreth stood with her lips pressed tight together, swabbing at the open laceration on my arm. 

The warden saw that I was conscious once more; gently he pushed my damp and tousled hair out of my face. "Oh, child." His voice was sad. "That this should happen to you –! If only you had stayed up here where you were safe…"

"It was my fault," said Ioreth, unusually terse. "I should have stopped her from going."

Then she was silent. She laid a clean cloth over the wound, and then she went over to a little table, returning with a pottery mug in her hand. She slid a supporting arm under my shoulders, and with difficulty I raised my head and drank from the mug she held to my lips. The liquid was sweet and thick, a syrup that smelled piercingly of poppy seed.

"To ease the pain," she explained, her eyes lowered. "We still have to set the bone, and that will hurt."

"Don't reproach yourself," I said. The syrup had left my tongue feeling numb, and my voice sounded hoarse and murmurous in my ears. "You would have had to tie me up to keep me from going, Ioreth."

A little smile curled her lips. "Probably," she admitted.

They waited a few minutes to give the poppy syrup time to take effect. I could feel how the drug began to confuse my senses, but still I noticed that Oroher slipped out of the room. Ioreth pulled back the covers from the upper part of my body and started dabbing a warm, fragrant ointment over my injured breast, her hand very gentle. She caught my eye and smiled.

"Not so bad, love," she said cheerfully. "Only a few bruises and scratches. You'll soon be good as new." But the smile didn't reach her eyes, and again she compressed her lips. "I wish I hadn't let you go. I'm so terribly sorry."

I wanted to reassure her again, but dizziness closed around me in a white mist and the words slid away, slippery as the ointment whose spicy fragrance filled my nostrils. Vaguely I knew that Oroher had returned and together they worked on me, bandaging the open laceration that, mercifully, I was hardly aware of anymore. I sank into a soft emptiness and the world became silent.

vvvvv

_He was coming after me. My feet clung to the ground as if I had been caught in a swamp, sticky, sucking at my ankles – in a moment he would have me. And this time he would press the knife against my throat and would not let it drop, this time he would do everything he wanted to me, and this time he would kill… a merciless hand clawed at my shoulder…_

…and I rocketed up in my bed, panting and streaming with sweat. My left arm felt as if it were on fire and I could hear my own breath, rasping and choking.

"Child?" 

I looked around in confusion and discovered Ioreth, stretched out on a narrow cot beside my bed. During the battle we had installed dozens of these cots in the sickrooms, to give us some rest as we watched over our patients. Candles burned in a silver holder on a table nearby, and Ioreth took up a cloth and gently washed my face. The cloth was warm and moist, smelling faintly of mint.

The dizzying effect of the poppy syrup had faded and my mind was clear; unfortunately, the pain had also returned.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. My voice was hardly above a whisper; I was so very tired…

"Looking after you, love. And from time to time I step outside and reassure that anxious warrior out there that indeed you are still alive."

"The anxious… Damrod? Is he still _here?"_

"He refused to leave." There was a knowing smile in her tired eyes. "If it was permitted, he would sleep by your bed with his sword in hand, to protect you. If I have ever seen a man so enamored –!"

I twisted uncomfortably in the rumpled sheets. "Please… may I see him? Perhaps I can persuade him to go back to the quarters of the guardsmen."

Ioreth eyed me doubtfully.

"I am not sure that is suitable, child…"

_"Ioreth." _I sighed, clenching my teeth when my arm protested against my impatient shrug. "What do you expect from a man who would defend my virtue with his naked blade, as you say? That he would knock you down with the hilt and then throw himself upon me?"

In spite of herself she giggled. "Well, all right. I'll bring him in."

I sank back into the pillows and closed my eyes, remembering how Damrod had held me in the saddle before him, my body leaning back against his chest, all the long way up the road. My hand had searched for his and he had taken it, held it firmly, until the moment when he gave me into the care of the healers.  
_  
And he was still here._

The door opened quietly and I opened my eyes. Damrod came in, hesitating, with Ioreth following on his heels. He had cleaned up, I noticed – his hair was combed and he wore a clean, dark green vest over a white shirt with flowing sleeves and black breeches that seemed to be made of buckskin. My eyes followed his legs down to a pair of soft leather boots, well polished, before I looked into his face and smiled.

"What are you doing here? I am safe and sound, believe me. And you must sleep! You have only just come from battle…" _And you go to another one_… The thought came uninvited and I pushed it aside fiercely. "Have you eaten something?"

This gracious lady here…" he half bowed in Ioreth's direction, and she smiled and ducked her head bashfully. "She has taken care for my corporal well-being. I am fine, but how are you, Noerwen?"

"Middling," I said dryly. "And I've had pleasanter dreams."

Before Damrod could answer, Ioreth suddenly gave an audible yawn. She covered her mouth with her hand, embarrassed, but I could see how exhausted she was. And no wonder – she'd had even less sleep than I had, these past two days.

Damrod's thoughts clearly moved in the same direction. "Perhaps you should take some rest, Ioreth?" he said. "I could stay with Noerwen, if she has no objection – and if the rules of the Houses permit."

To my surprise, Ioreth said nothing more about decency or propriety, and five minutes later we were alone in the room. Damrod settled into a chair by the table, and the candlelight shimmered on his dark hair and caught sparks of gold in his eyes. He raised his head and saw me watching him, and once again I could not hold back my smile.

"How did you manage that?" I wanted to know. "I asked Ioreth to call you in with the avowed purpose of sending you back to your quarters for some rest, and instead here you are with me! And to speak truth, I am glad of it. Come, don't sit there; lie down on the cot. Maybe you can get at least a little sleep."

He hesitated, but only briefly. Then he blew out the candles, and a moment later I heard the leather straps of the cot creaking softly as he stretched out beside me.

His voice came out of the darkness. "Good night, Noerwen. Don't be afraid – anyone who wants to hurt you, will first have to get past me."

"I know," I said softly. _And I really did know_. Impulsively I reached out with my good hand and – perhaps by accident – found his waiting for me. It was as warm and comforting as the first time, and I held to it with a sense of relief and peacefulness. And then I fell asleep.

When I awoke, the first grey light of dawn was coming in through the pointed arch of the window. _Daylight_… by that much, at least, the power of the Dark Lord was beaten back. I turned cautiously onto my side and regarded the man who slept tranquilly at my side.

The night's repose had smoothed out the lines of strain in his face. It was a handsome face with good features, but… it was not only that, it held a beauty that was more than finely sculpted bones and an elegant swoop of the eyebrows, more than the shape and colour of his eyes. Examining him at my leasure as he slept, I began to realize how deeply his face drew me to him.

I was twenty-five years old, and contrary to the social norms of my own world, there had been few men in my life. A few fleeting encounters had never gone beyond a few kisses and, once or twice, some trifling endearments. My difficult relationship with my father had taught me some bitter truths: people close to your heart could hurt you badly, could let you down completely when you most needed them. And so for many years I had formed few friendships, and had fended off any attempts at romance. That had bought me safety, but I had been very much alone.

Now suddenly I was here, surrounded by the men and women of an utterly different, shockingly strange world – but I felt myself on solid ground, and for the first time I understood what an awesome thing that was. In my own world I would have remained distant, distrustful, but in Middle Earth I found friends easily. I had never wanted to be a healer, but here in Minas Tirith everthing I had learned during my unwilling study of medicine came back to me, as if it had only been waiting, in some mysterious corner of my mind, for the chance to use it to benefit those who needed it.

And here also was this man, the greatest surprise of all. A gentle, loving friend, and yet a warrior – his determination to defend me with his body and his life was no empty promise, and that realization quite literally took my breath away. It was incomprehensible that I should have earned such selfless devotion.

"Damrod," I whispered. He sighed and stirred, opened his eyes and saw me leaning over him. He lay still, instantly wide awake, but his face pensive and calm; I could feel his breath on my cheek. Slowly he raised one hand and cupped the back of my head gently. I leaned into the touch and saw my reflection mirrored in the grey eyes.

I kissed him.

He tasted of wood smoke and of sleep. I could feel his lips relaxing under mine in a surprised smile, and he made no attempt to move away, but neither did he embrace me. I understood that he was afraid of giving me pain, and a warm, glowing fire filled my heart and body. I had no free hand to touch him as I longed to in this moment, but I could show him in another way, how much I cared…

I pressed my lips against his, then backed off a little. I felt his hand sliding down my spine, making me shiver, and something deep inside me took over, throwing away all inhibition. I searched once more for his lips, driven by a hunger that surprised me even as I yielded to it. His mouth opened under mine and for a dizzy, delightful moment our tongues touched. His sigh whispered past my ear and he buried his hand in my hair, hanging over his face like a curtain. I raised my head and took a deep breath, and then I kissed him again, deeply and full of desire. I heard my own voice, a soft moan of enchantment deep in my throat, and his hand caressed my shoulder and then wandered further… The sheet and blankets had slipped down, and I wore only a sleeveless shirt with a loose neckline. His hand slid under my shirt, cupping my right breast, and then it moved over to the other side, tender, exploring –

"Ahhhh – _don't!" _

I winced, jerking away, and nearly fell off the bed. I bit back my cry of pain and it was a few moments before I regained my composure. I looked timidly at Damrod, and the sight was deflating: he sat perfectly still, his face blank and his eyes downcast.

"Damrod…"

He looked up, blushing fiercely. "I am sorry, Noerwen." His voice was grim. "What an incredible lout I am! To touch you… as if you were my own… after what happened to you…" He looked away. "That was unforgivable."

He got up. "I had better leave," he said. "Forgive me if you can. I will not bother you anymore."

Suddenly I understood. _Of course! He couldn't be expected to know –_

"Damrod, _stop!"_ He stood still, his hand already on the doorknob. "You did not do anything unforgivable – may I remind you who kissed who first? You are tender and wonderful and I am not angry. Of course I am not angry!"

He looked around at me, his face full of doubt. I gazed into his face, some part of my mind listening incredulously to the echo of my own voice. Was I seriously declaring my love to this man?

Of course I was! I loved him, it was as simple as that. _I loved him!_ Never in my life had anything been so perfectly clear. 

"I winced because that breast is injured! That – that brute dug his mailed fist into it and now it's all black and blue and covered with bruises – if it weren't for that, do you think I would have let you go?"

A light began to shine in his eyes, but I kept on talking, my hands folded in my lap like a schoolgirl reciting a piece of poetry.

"Before you came in, I was dreaming about him… he was hunting me like a wild animal and in the end he caught me, I was helpless in his hands and I knew that this time I would not escape…

"If you leave now, that dream will come back over and over, every time I try to sleep. It terrifies me…" His face blurred as my eyes filled with tears. "I don't want you to go away, Damrod," I said softly. "I want you to touch me again as if I were yours, for I am. If you want me to be, I am." 

I closed my eyes. He did not say anything, and for an awful moment I feared that I had gone too far, I had misunderstood his actions. Perhaps it had been nothing more than the momentary lust of a warrior too long without a woman. And I would be rejected once again, like an unwanted, inappropriate gift.

And then two quick steps brought him to my side; he sat down on the edge of the bed and his arms closed around me.

"Noerwen," he said. "_Noerwen!"_ His voice was breathless and full of awe, and he caressed my hair and my cheeks and kissed the tears from my face.

vvvvv

When Ioreth returned a quarter of an hour later, I was lying in bed, properly covered up, and Damrod was sitting at the table. Her gaze wandered over the pair of us, but whatever she thought, she kept it to herself. I'll always be grateful to her for that. Damrod bid us farewell with perfect courtesy, giving me a sly smile behind her back, and then he was gone.

Ioreth had brought my breakfast on a tray and I ate a little. I didn't have much appetite, between the after-effects of the poppy syrup and my musings over the scene that had just taken place.

_What had I done?_

He was a wonderful man, there was no question about that. And he loved me; never before had I been so sure of anything. And I loved him! Remembering his face, his eyes, the touch of his hand – I felt oddly, pleasurably dizzy, and the blood seemed to sing in my veins. I was filled with warmth, smiling in spite of myself.

_Even so – what had I done?_

What if I disappeared, between one moment and the next? What if I let the kiss lead to something more, and in the end he was left with empty hands? And beyond that, the last battle still lay ahead. I had no doubt that he would fight; Damrod was not a man to shrink from danger, particularly when he felt the defense of the city to be his duty. _He may fall,_ I thought. _He is a brave man; it is only too likely…_

As I reached that point in my ruminations, mercifully Ioreth came in to take away the breakfast tray.

"When am I allowed to go out again?" I asked.

She shot me a glance of disbelief. "Out? Where are you wanting to go, love? Take a walk? Clear the battlefield?"

"I just need some fresh air." My voice sounded whiney; I bit my lip and strove for a friendly, casual tone. "I haven't seen the sun for nearly a week. Could I at least walk in the garden, do you think?"

"I am not sure you can walk at all, love."

"But why? There's nothing wrong with my legs!"

There was a knock on the door and Ioreth gave a sigh of relief. "Come in!"

The door opened slightly and Mardil's tousled grey mop of hair came in sight. He peeked in cautiously, and when he saw Ioreth the friendly expression on his old face grew wary, almost alarmed.

"Mardil!" I exclaimed, very much pleased.

Ioreth eyed the old herb master without favor. "Ah. Lost the hypericum, have you, and come to ask the only human being in Minas Tirith who can sort out your mess?"

Mardil came in, closing the door behind him. "There is no mess anymore, my dear Ioreth, thanks to Noerwen," he said. "How are you, child?"

"I'm fine so long as I don't move my arm." I smiled at him. "I'd love a mug of peppermint tea from your supplies, though."

"Better I take care of that," Ioreth said resolutely. "By the time Mardil carries the peppermint into the kitchen, he will have forgotten what he intended to do with it."

She whirled out and the door slammed behind her. I gazed after her in perplexity. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, child." Mardil drew the chair over to the bed and sat down. "I've known Ioreth for more than forty years. We came here at more or less the same time, and she was…" He paused for a moment, blinking. "She was a handsome young woman – vivid – and she talked as much then as she does now. Well, perhaps a little less!" He looked at me from the corner of his eye, ironically. "I liked her, you know, very much, but even then I was a bit of a misfit. And forgetful, I'm afraid. Several times we had planned to do something or other together, and I forgot…" He sighed. "Well, she probably was not very interested anyway…"

I stared at him, trying to digest this astonishing information.

"But _you _were interested, Mardil, is that it?" I asked finally.

"Yes, I suppose I was." His eyes were soft, remembering, and a little smile crooked his mouth. "She was quite lovely, like a bonny small bird. But I don't suppose she really wanted an absent-minded dreamer, more accomplished with old tales and herbal recipes than the wishes and expectations of women. She went off one day and married a good man, and they were happy together. A few years ago he died, and then she came back to us… only to find that I was still here, and hadn't changed one iota. Since then I am from time to time the target of her… uh… jokes."

He got up, looking down at me. "I must go back downstairs. I've mixed up a few new remedies against wound pain and fever – they are even bottled already! I only need to put the labels on." He smiled.

"I wish I could help," I said sorrowfully.

"You already have," he said. He patted my shoulder and went out, closing the door behind him.

A few minutes later Ioreth came back with the tea. I drank it down, and then I went back to sleep and slept for most of the rest of this March day, while the leaders of the city's defense took counsel together in the Citadel. I woke early in the evening to find a glorious sunset gilding the walls of my small room. A servant brought in a supper tray, and I ate and fell asleep again nearly at once.

Damrod did not come back all day. I missed him, but I did not blame him, that he could not find time to come and visit. Yet I longed to see him at least once more before the army marched out, and finally I decided to send a messenger to him, asking him to come. The messenger would have to be Ioreth, I supposed, and I hardly dared imagine what she would have to say about it.

The next morning I felt much better, and after breakfast Oroher came and changed my bandage. He brought a sling for my arm and told me I could go outside if I wished, even asking Alandel to set a chair for me in the back garden. Ioreth helped me to get dressed (a rather exhausting procedure) and I finally managed to get out, late in the forenoon, leaning on her arm.

A pale March sun lighted the lawn under trees that were tipped with pale green buds, nearly ready to open into little rosettes of leaves. It seemed a long way to the chair; when I reached it, I fell into it with relief. Obviously I was weaker than I had thought. Ioreth took a blanket and wrapped me up as if in a warm cocoon, tucking it around me with gentle care.

I looked up at her. "Ioreth, tell me… what is all this about you and Mardil? He told me some very complimentary things about you, not long ago."

"Mardil?" She bristled. "That old codger? Well, he can spare me the compliments!"

"But why? If I understood him rightly, he liked you very much at one time."

"Him?" She snorted audibly. "He has an odd way of showing it, then!" Her face softened a little. "I have to go back inside, love. I'll bring you something to eat later on, and if you want to go back to bed you only have to call. There is always someone in the garden, who can help you if you need it."

She bustled away, and I smiled secretly as I watched her fo. She had been very interested in Mardil in those days, or I was very much mistaken… probably she still carried a grudge that he had forgotten her more than once in his absent-mindedness. I shifted, lying back comfortably in my chair and savoring the fresh, sweet fragrance of the dewy grass, closing my eyes.

When I opened them again, for a moment I didn't know where I was. The sun was far in the west, laying a patina of golden light across the garden. I blinked, fumbling my good hand out of my cocoon of blankets and wiping my brow. When I turned my head, I was gazing right into Damrod's face, where he sat on the grass beside my chair.

It was a gentle but emphatic blow to my solar plexus. Warmth shot into my limbs and it was a moment before the world stopped whirling around me.

"Hello, Noerwen," he said softly. I wanted to answer him, but found myself literally breathless. I smiled; finally I managed to speak.

"How long have you been here?" 

"A few minutes." He laid his hand against my cheek, and I nestled my face into his palm. "The incomparable Ioreth was just here; she brought you something to eat. She said she's been back to look in on you several times, but you were asleep. The tray is here on the ground."

"Have _you_ eaten anything?"

"Don't worry, we are well fed in the dining hall of the Guard." His gaze on me was warm and ardent, like an embrace. "I came back because I had to see you again. I've just been sitting here watching you, and it's been the most peaceful time I've known in all these last months." He paused, then added softly, "You are so beautiful."

I looked at him for a long time before I answered. "You didn't come only for that, did you?" I said at last. "You came to say goodbye. You are marching to the Black Gate tomorrow." 

"How—?"

Of course, there was no way I could have know that, not that it mattered in the least. Not now, not here.

"As you said once before, Damrod of Ithilien, there is a lot of talk in the Houses of Healing," I answered lightly. I studied his face, the beautifully shaped grey eyes… his eyelashes were jet black, surprisingly long and tick for a man. The high cheek bones and strong chin, the finely drawn mouth. He had the deep, even tan of a man who spends most of his time out of doors.

"And now what do you expect of me? Am I to send you away once more, kissing you for luck and then pacing back and forth on the battlements of Minas Tirith like a proper damsel? And when you come back, I will garland you with flowers – _if_ you ever come back!"

My voice failed and I twisted my head away, feeling sick. All my knowledge of the future, the outcome of this struggle, culled from the books of the Pengolodh, was exactly useless when it came to Damrod's fate. I imagined the professor sitting close to the fireplace with the prince of Ithilien, the wind howling in the chimney, on a winter's day when the Ring War was well over. _That was the day I met Frodo of the Nine Fingers_, Faramir was saying. _I left him behind under the guard of Mablung and Damrod. A pity I cannot introduce you to Damrod: he fell at the Black Gate. Not many died in that battle, but he was one of them and I miss him very much.  
_  
The imagined scene was so clear before my eyes that I clenched my teeth. I didn't know, I _couldn't_ know, whether he would survive.

He took my chin in his hand and gently, insistently, turned my face to his. "I don't care much for wreaths of flowers," he said, and with some surprise I noted the smile in his eyes. "I prefer the herbs of Ithilien. When you waited for me at the city gate – after Osgiliath – your robe, your robe, even your hair smelled of rosemary, spicy and strong. Do you remember?"

_As if I could ever forget that day!_

"What do you want from me?"

"Time." I stared at him openly. "I know I am not the only one – all over the city women are bidding farewell to fathers, husbands, sons… But they all had something already: they had time with these men they love, before they must let them go. We have had no time, Damrod."

"What is it that you want?" he asked softly.

"I must go inside; I am getting chilled. Can you bring me to my room, or must you leave at once?"

"Of course I can," he said. "I asked for leave until tomorrow morning. Then we muster near the city gates, ready to march." 

_Until tomorrow morning._

We sat gazing into each other's eyes and the silence stretched between us. Then he pulled himself together and helped me out of the chair, supported me with his arm as we walked slowly across the velvet lawn. The sunlight ran like a golden stream among the afternoon shadows on the ground, and his arm was strong, holding me up, his hand warm in mine.

He guided me through empty hallways to my chamber. The only person we met was Alandel, who greeted me pleasantly and shot a curious glance at Damrod. I asked him to tell Oroher and Ioreth that I had gone to bed early, not daring to look at Damrod as I said it, and a moment later we stood before the door of my room.

Damrod laid his hands on my shoulders. „Noerwen..."

I raised my good hand and gently covered his mouth. "Quiet," I said softly. "I love you, Damrod. I love you."

"But what if _I_… or if _you…"_

I shook my head, drawing him with me into the room and shutting the door. It had a latch, thankfully, and I fastened it before I turned again to this man I loved.

The bed was freshly made up, and a small basket of fruit and little cakes sat on the nightstand – and something else, which made me pause. A beautiful engraved carafe of red wine and two glasses. _Two _glasses – that had to have been Ioreth, and I laughed in spite of myself.

_"Old bawd…"_ I murmured, shaking my head. I went to stand by Damrod, close, my mouth by his ear.

"This will be a peculiar night of love," I whispered. "I can't even embrace you properly, and I can't undress myself. You will have to help me."

Suddenly he smiled, his eyes lighting up in the way I so loved. "I have mastered more difficult tasks than that," he said.

And this task he fulfilled carefully, thoroughly. He stripped the loose robe over my head and helped me out of the sleeveless shirt. Sooner than I expected I stood naked before him, and heard his sharp intake of breath when his gaze fell on my injured breast. His eyes narrowed and darkened and his lips tightened.

"I am so sorry," he murmured and then, a little breathless, "Noerwen, are you really _sure?"  
_  
"Beloved, are you really serious?" I asked.

He chuckled, pulling me into his arms and kissing me. His kiss was deep and hungry, coming to an end only when I drew back to gasp for air. The blood hummed in my ears and my knees grew weak; I took a step back and sank down on the bed. Then I watched as he undressed.

He was very tidy, folding his vest, shirt and breeches carefully on top of my robe on the chair. His chest was smooth with a beautiful, well-defined musculature, his hips slim and his legs long and lean, like those of a well-trained runner.

I didn't know if _I_ was beautiful, but _he_ was. Oh, he was, indeed!

He knelt in front of the bed and leaned over me; I felt his mouth tracing a warm, irresistible line down my neck. I put my good hand on his shoulder, caressing his naked skin for the first time. His flesh was warm and silky under my hand, and then his lips touched the wounded breast, so light and gentle that I hardly felt the touch, except that the pain was suddenly, miraculously gone. He turned his attention to the other breast, his mouth closing around my nipple, soft, urgent… I moaned with pleasure.

Then he came to me, surrounding me with his scent and his warmth, the strength and hardness of him, a stream of tenderness and yearning. I closed my eyes and let myself fall in.


	10. Battles and Victories

**10. Battles and Victories**

It was the moon that woke me up. Its beams fell in a wide pathway from the window to shine directly in my face. I opened my eyes and blinked, and then I felt the arm resting across my chest, the warm body close to mine, naked and relaxed in deep slumber.

I turned to look at him. The covers had slipped down from the upper part of his body, and the clear light gave his flesh the glow of marble, turned his skin to matte silver. I reached out to lay my hand lightly on his chest.  
From our first encounter I had been forced to rely on his physical strength for protection, and I remembered lying in the damp grass while he threw himself on top of me, shielding my body from the claws of the Nazgul. And then I had sat behind him, holding tight around his waist as we rode to Minas Tirith; I had embraced him in giddy relief when he returned from Osgiliath, sorrowful and injured. I had tended to his hurts, and tonight I had taken him into my bed. He had given himself to me with a joy and a commitment that humbled and amazed me.

_"My beloved is all radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousands," _I whispered, and the glorious ancient words from the biblical Song of Solomon came back into my mind. _"His head is the finest gold, his locks are wavy, black as a raven."_

"What do you say, my heart?"

His eyes were open and he smiled.

"I'm sorry," I said softly. "I didn't want to wake you up – you need the rest."

"That is true." He drew me closer with great tenderness, not to touch the injury and cause pain. "But I'm not sorry, not at all."

"No?" I laughed against his warm skin, and with delight I felt the shiver course through his body.

"No." He caught my hand and kissed my fingertips. "For thus I have something to take with me tomorrow, when the army marches away."

My smile died away and now it was me shivering. I hugged him as tight as I could with my bandaged arm, pressing my cheek against his chest to listen to his heart, its throbbing loud against my ear._ If he was slain… if he did not come back! _Panic sent ice through my veins and tightened my throat, and then I felt his hand stroking my back, slow and soothing.

"Please don't. You must not be afraid."

I raised my head to look into his face.

"Are _you_ not afraid?"

For a moment the dark eyes were pensive, distant. Then he smiled, but there was sorrow in his countenance, memories I knew nothing of, the bitter end of fallen friends and battles long finished.

„Not really," he said quietly. "There is a kind of fear a warrior must not allow himself – it dims the eye and weakens the hand. I have learned not to be afraid in that way. Guardedness, yes… that is absolutely necessary. And as time goes on, you develop a certain instinct – for the enemy at your back, for the sword striking out at you, for the unsheathed dagger you can't see in the dark…"

_An unsheathed dagger in the dark_… I thought of the attack of only a few days ago, but at this moment it seemed like a dream, a bad nightmare, no more than that. I looked at the man who held me in his arms, tender and strong…

It was thanks to him that the touch of a hand would never bring back the horror, the shame and anguish. He had displaced those dark images with stronger and comforting impressions, the gentleness of his hands, his body and his heart.

_And if fate was not merciful to me, I would never see him again._

With an effort I sat up and ran my eyes over him, letting my hand glide across his chest and down his belly. His muscles tightened under my touch, and he lay utterly still, closing his eyes, as I turned my attention to his chest once more, using my mouth this time. I felt his hands on the back of my head, running his fingers through my hair, teasing out the long tresses till they lay like an outspread mantle over us both…

Outside the darkness gave way slowly to a grey dawn. The moon set, and as the first faint daylight filtered through the window, I took him inside me once more. The rhythm of our hunger and desire surged through me, ebbing and flowing, and a cry broke from me that was half joy and half despair. Then Damrod drew me down upon him, smoothly, irresistibly, and took me with him beyond the barrier, and my cry dissolved in his kiss.

******

He had plaited my hair into a braid, playfully, and I loosened it as I looked spellbound at my reflection in the mirror. The wound on my arm still hurt, but at that moment I hardly felt the pain. He stepped behind me, still naked, and his warm hand cupped my bare breast.

"You are so beautiful. I cannot believe what a gift you gave me…"

"When do you have to leave?"

His hand caressed me; his breath swept warm across my skin.

"The army marches at noon."

I winced. "I don't want to let you go," I whispered. My body felt numb, wooden.

"We have an hour yet."

_He could die so easily in the battle._

"One hour…"

"An hour is a long time."

His voice was deep and warm, and I could hear the smile in it. I realized that he was hiding the thought of the way to the Black Gate from me, deliberately, to protect me. My heart ached with how much I loved him.

At last he helped me to wash myself and get dressed, and I watched as he slipped into his own garments. We walked into the refectory together and I got milk for us, fruit and fresh-baked bread. Damrod ate with a good appetite, methodically, like a man who is aware that he needs his strength for the task ahead. He urged me to drink my milk, at least, and to please him I ate an apple he cut up for me. Then we went outside into the garden, hand in hand, and on into the street.

He took me in his arms, pressed tight against him, and I inhaled his scent, the clean tang of herbal soap from the Houses mixed with the faint flavor of his very skin that I had so thoroughly explored during the night… warm and spicy like sandalwood.

"If you don't come back I will never forgive you," I whispered, my throat tight.

"Oh, but I will come back, Noerwen," he answered quietly. "I will always come back to you, don't you know that?"

I felt his lips soft on my brow, my cheeks, and at last on my mouth; then he let me go. I saw him smiling, one last time, and then he turned away and started down the road, his steps quick and decided. I stood watching, following him with my eyes, until the road curved sharply and he vanished without a single backward glance.

He was definitely stronger than I was.

I would gladly have returned to my favorite place in the gardens, near the back wall behind the Houses, where Damrod had bid me farewell before the last battle. But I might have met Mardil there, or Oroher, or – the tought sent a horrified shudder down my spine –_ Ioreth._ That would be more than I could bear.

Instead I walked slowly down the street to the next circle. I had seen a garden there from up above, bordered by the city wall. It belonged to a house, but there didn't seem to be anyone living there at present – perhaps the inhabitants had been evacuated before the siege.

When I reached the house, the black gate, bordered with beautiful ancient patterns engraved into the wood, was locked. But there was a small passageway beside it with a gate of wrought iron; it opened easily when I pressed against it, and I walked through into the garden I had already seen.

The garden was just as I had known it would be. Narrow paths paved in white stone meandered over the lawn and all around me lilac bushes were putting out their leaves, not blooming yet in March, but in a few more weeks any visitor would find herself in a daze of sweet purple fragrance. I strolled across the lawn – it needed a proper scything – and stepped close to the wall.

The blasted Pelennor lay under the morning sun and the last Army of the West was drawn up before the gates. I watched the men finding their places in the ranks, light mirrored and flashing from their helmets and the tips of their spears. _Seven thousand men,_ I thought. _Great Iluvatar, they are so few! _

They would survive, or most of them would. The ring would go into the fire and the Dark Lord would be defeated. But at this moment that was no comfort to me. Warriors died in battle, even in victory. A misfortuned arrow could pierce the man I loved; an orc could hew him down before the eagles came.

I sat down abruptly on the ground, drawing my knees up to my chest. The grass was wet with dew and a shudder ran through me, but it was a chill inside, not the damp cold soaking into my skirt, and it would not stop no matter how I hugged myself. For the first time since I sat behind Damrod on his bay, just realizing where I was, panic rushed over me in an towering wave and I felt about to drown.

_What makes you think you will be lucky this time? _said a small, evil whisper in my ear. _Always you have lost everyone you loved, every single one of them – and your father's love was dead already before he died himself. Isn't that true? Isn't it? _

I pressed my face against my good arm and closed my eyes.

_And even if he does survive, and peace returns_, the voice jeered on, _What will he say when you finally tell him the truth? Wouldn't he prefer a wife who is not apt to dissolve suddenly into thin air? _

I felt the fear like a hard ball in my throat and my composure broke. I cried as I had not done since my mother died; tears flooded me till my bodice was wet with them, and sobs seemed to tear me apart. From a long way off I heard the horns blowing on the Pelennor as the army marched away.

To this day I could not tell how long I cowered there, abandoned to hopelessness. The storm abated at last, leaving me calm but empty, and I raised my head, took a shivering breath and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

"I beg your pardon… would you like a handkerchief?"

I jumped, jerking around to see a small figure seated on the lawn a few metres away.

I stared at him in perplexity. Only a little fellow in knee breeches and a white shirt, one of his arms in a sling. He looked intelligent, his grey-green eyes clear with a dark ring around the iris that lent his gaze a peculiar sharpness. He met my scrutiny with a pixy-like smile that dimpled his cheeks. I looked down, embarrassed to be caught staring, and saw his feet: shoeless, the insteps clothed in frizzy hair.

He held out a large square of white linen and his smile deepened when I took it and blew my nose noisily.

"Thank you," I said. "Merry Brandybuck, isn't it?"

"At your service." He managed a gracious bow even sitting there on the ground. "And you are Noerwen from the Houses of Healing."

"That's right." I tried my best not to stare, but he on his part examined me thoroughly from head to foot. It was fascinating and not a little bewildering to receive an appreciative "male" look from the eyes of someone who was probably mistaken for a child by many of the people who met him.

"You have wonderful hair," he remarked conversationally. "Red gold, like flame – glorious, really."

"Er… thank you." I felt an irrepressible giggle bubbling up in spite of my misery. "Normally my face looks a little better too, I assure you."

A companionable silence fell between us.

"Pippin told me about you," Merry said suddenly. "He thought you were very good, taking care of him, while I was unconscious."

"I didn't do that much," I said.

"I don't agree." He threw me a sidelong glance. "You were friendly; you talked to him and encouraged him, and even better, you gave him something to eat." He grinned. "He's a hobbit, you know, and food is very important to us."

"Is it?" Again I felt laughter tickling my throat; I was surprised to find that I felt very comfortable in Merry's company.

"I saw you coming in here some time ago," he said after a pause. "And I followed you, for I wanted to thank you for your kindness to my cousin when he needed a friend. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"I know." I propped my chin on my knees and stared down at the ground. "I just bid farewell to a man who is going to the battle before the Black Gate. A wonderful man, one of the rangers of Ithilien, and – I love him. When he passed out of my sight, I was afraid that I would never see him again."

"Are you promised?"

I smiled. "No, we haven't known each other very long. Actually, I met him for the first time a week ago."

_One week. No, six days._ I could hardly believe it.

"I don't think that matters much," he said slowly. "These last few months, I've learned that you can make friends very quickly in times like these. It would be impossible in normal circumstances… I wouldn't ever have met some of my comrades if I hadn't left the Shire."

"The son of the Steward." I smiled at him. "An elf, a dwarf, and a ranger with a new-forged sword… you really do get around, Master Brandybuck."

He stared at me in amazement.

"How do you know all that?"

"Oh… Gandalf," I said and inwardly gave myself a good kick for my stupidity. The fact that I felt more and more relaxed in Merry's presence mustn't lead to imprudence.

"You must be on good terms with him!" Merry gave a surprised laugh. "And I am a squire of the Riddermark. King Theoden… he was a good man, a good friend… You know that he fell?"

"Yes, I know." A deep shadow darkened his face for a few seconds. "Some of the healers helped to wash and lay him out. And we cared for Eowyn."

"Eowyn," he murmured. "She disguised herself as a man and rode into battle. And when everyone wanted to leave me behind like an annoying child, she took me up on her own horse and gave me a chance to prove my value." There was grim satisfaction in his voice. "I did no more than to prick a ghost in the leg with my sword, but it was enough to save her life and she was able to kill him."

"I know," I said earnestly. "It was a very brave deed."

He made a disparaging gesture. "That was nothing. Eowyn was a heroine; she faced him and did not flinch. And now Strider – Aragorn – has wakened her, but sometimes, you know, I think she is still asleep."  
He gave me an uncertain look, and I raised my eyebrows encouragingly.

"It… it was hard for her, I think. She had to care for Theoden when he was under the influence of Grima Wormtongue – did Gandalf tell you about Grima?"

I nodded.

"I think he… wanted her. He crept after her for years like a slimy, soundless snake. And then Gandalf tore away his mask and he fled to his master, to Saruman, like the coward he was. I saw him in Isengard." He hesitated. "She had to be always on guard against him, and all the while her uncle the king grew weaker, more confused… I think she would rather have ridden out with her brother to fight orcs! I almost think she would prefer to be a man. It is very sad."

I regarded him with growing respect. He had an amazing understanding of people, and I liked the deep feeling for Eowyn I could hear in every word he said.

"Now…" I stretched my legs and moved my right arm tentatively; pain flickered down it to my fingertips and I held it still again. "As far as I know, Eowyn came to Edoras after her mother's death, and it was a king's court without any queen. She never had the chance to choose a woman to be her model – there were only men. So for Eowyn strength and honour had always to do with battle, with the use of a sword."

Merry frowned, then smiled faintly.

"Perhaps she would have done better to take the first opportunity that offered and deal with Grima using a blade," he murmured.

"You see, that was the problem," I said. "She wasn't allowed to do that. She was raised almost like a man, but she did not have the right to act like a man. It must have been terribly hard for her to bear this; always she saw her womanhood as weakness, a burden and a shame."

He gazed at me attentively, and I could see how he pondered my arguments and finally accepted them.  
"I had not looked at it that way," he said slowly, "but you are probably right." He yawned, then winced slightly and grabbed at his shoulder. "Perhaps we should go back to the Houses of Healing. I'm getting tired, and I'm hungry besides."

"Then we will go back," I said. "I'll find something for you to eat." I stood up a little awkwardly and pain shot through my arm again.

Merry looked at my sling. "How did that happen?"

_The Southron, pinning me brutally to the ground. His hands on my body, his tongue thrusting relentlessly into my mouth… and the knife, so keen its edge, slicing almost of its own accord through his throat… his blood a horrible warm rain on my naked flesh…_

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, pushed aside the memory with all my will.

"I'll tell you some other time." I made my tone light, friendly, and was thankful that my voice didn't tremble. "Now we really must go back. I'm afraid I should not have walked around outside; I will hear about it from Ioreth."

He smiled. "Small and old, sharp eyes and a tongue like a rattling mill wheel?"

I grinned back at him . "Exactly."

"She reminds me of the stories about my Great-aunt Amaranth," Merry said. "They say it took days for some family members to recover after a discussion with her."

"Sounds fascinating," I laughed. "I'd like to know more about your home."

We walked slowly side by side, and Merry began to tell me tales of Brandy Hall.

******

We didn't talk much after we reached the Houses of Healing. The small "journey" one circle down had been more exhausting than I thought, and I had to lie down. I didn't see Merry again until the next morning, when I went into the back garden, an apple in my hand.

He stood by the wall, a small, very upright figure, and he didn't move when I greeted him although he answered politely. He was gazing rigidly through one of the decorative openings in the brickwork. I stepped beside him and looked in the same direction; the bare slopes of Mindolluin lay in the full splendor of the morning sun.

After a while I asked gently, "Don't you want to look east?"

He shook his head, tightening his lips.

"You are worried about Pippin, are you?"

I sat down in the grass next to him, as he had sat by me in the neglected garden yesterday. Finally he turned to me and I saw fear in the sharp, clear eyes, and something like anger.

"Yes, I am," he said. And then, as if he suddenly gave up all resistance, he slumped down beside me. He drew up his legs and propped his chin on his knees, closing his eyes.

"I always took care of him," he said slowly. "Nothing could really happen to him as long as I was there. He's always poking his fingers into things he shouldn't touch, and sometimes his curiosity drives me insane. The Palantir…"

He paused, glancing at me sideways. When I showed no sign of surprise or ignorance, he nodded slightly as if he had expected that I would know what he meant.

"Pippin isn't silly." He frowned. "He's a little too easygoing, he doesn't always think things through. But he is like a brother to me… no, more than a brother. When he's not with me I feel as if one of my arms is missing, or a leg. Or both. And if he is killed in front of that Black Gate everyone is talking about…"

His expression was agonized; it was hard to watch his fear and his doubts. Without thinking I reached out and laid my good hand on his back, kneading the tense muscles as firmly as I could without the support of my other hand. Merry winced, but then he relaxed and yielded to the comforting touch. We sat for several minutes without talking while I continued the improvised massage; then I ran my hand up his back once more, allowing my hand to rest for a moment on his shoulder before I drew it back.

"He will not die," I said. "Maybe he will not return unharmed, and surely not unchanged, but he will not die."

"What makes you so sure?"

He was staring at me and I knew I must be on my guard. He was not stupid.

"Call it hope," I said quietly. "Call it certitude that things simply have to turn to good. That the king will reign in peace someday over a healed kingdom; that men will plow their fields instead of marching to battle… and perhaps that a few heroic hobbits may go home as well."

His face closed and I knew of whom he was thinking – those two, whose return was so unlikely. The one who had taken the greatest hazard of this whole deadly war on his slender shoulders, and the other, who walked beside him without hesitation.

Resolutely I swallowed the lump in my throat. "_All _Hobbits," I whispered. "However unmarred."

There was a sound of voices; someone was approaching behind us, and Merry gazed past me.

"Look," he said, his voice hushed.

I turned around. Faramir and Eowyn were walking side by side across the dew-damp lawn. They were curiously alike, each with one arm in a sling, both of them pale, with drawn faces. But they were conversing, one with another, and I guessed that Faramir was telling some tale. From time to time she put in a word, and Faramir's face lightened as she gazed up at him – although she was nearly as tall as he was, and had not far to look up. _If ever I have seen an enamored man…_ Ioreth had said that about Damrod, but her words suited this case just as well, and Merry saw it, too.

"A lovely couple," I said softly.

"Exactly." Merry sounded thoughtful, and the weariness had left his voice. I saw that his eyes were full of mischief.

"Do you perhaps intend to assist fate, Master Meriadoc?" I did my best to sound shocked, but he didn't fall for it.

"Certainly, if I can arrange it." He grinned, and I felt that I could literally see the beginnings of a plan of action forming in his eyes._ He was a conspirator, indeed. _I pulled myself to my feet with some effort, nearly stepping on the hem of my robe as I got up.

"I must go back to the house," I said. "My arm needs a fresh bandage."

"He rose, then he bowed and – to my surprise – took my hand and kissed it.

"Thank you," he said soberly, "for every comfort my cousin and I have received at your hands." He smiled at me and his dimples reappeared. "You are like a fire to warm oneself at on a winter day. Your ranger is a lucky man indeed. I hope he also will come home safe and sound."

I walked through the garden slowly until I reached the main building. At the door I glanced back and saw him sitting on the lawn again, devouring with gusto the apple I had brought out and completely forgotten.

*****

In the following week I was able to watch Merry's plan developing to his satisfaction. The young captain and the shieldmaiden from Rohan spent more and more time together. Often I saw Merry talking to Faramir, sitting on the ground, the steward idly holding a book on his knee, or together with Eowyn, resting in an armchair while Merry lay in the grass, both deep in discussion.

My arm was healing, though not as quickly as I had hoped. My medical training told me to be thankful, that arnica compresses, packs of field horsetail and properly boiled linen seemed to have an astonishing effect, but I wasn't satisfied. I was constantly tired; the shortest walks left me breathless, and I slept miserably. The oppressed city waited night by night under a clear sky to learn its fate, and I lay in my quiet room with my eyes wide open, watching as the stars faded and gave way to pearl grey dawn.

The days melted one into another. I remember on March 24th I walked out in the gardens, a little weak in the knees, to recover after a rather painful changing of bandages. I found a sheltered spot near the wall and found two quiet figures stretched out on the newly-shorn grass, both sound asleep. Eowyn's blonde head leaned against Faramir's shoulder; the spring breeze had given her beautiful pale face a hint of color, and his hand lay over hers protectively.

I stood and watched them for a long moment, gripped by jealousy, realizing that their destiny would link them together. I would have liked to have a similar certainty concerning myself.

Then I slipped away, not to disturb them. I rubbed my head, trying to massage away a pounding headache that had tormented me ever since breakfast. In the course of the day it grew worse and worse, until Ioreth placed a wooden draught screen in front of the window by my bed; the light hurt my eyes.

"Oroher must examine you thoroughly tomorrow morning," she said. She stood at the foot of my bed, her voice only half penetrating the dull droning inside my head. I nodded weakly, relieved when she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Another unpleasant night dragged by and the 25th of March dawned, dark and stormy. I struggled out of bed and managed somehow to wash and dress myself, but the very thought of breakfast made my stomach clench up in a hard knot. I felt alternately hot and cold, and every few minutes I was gripped by a violent dizziness that forced me to to lean against the wall.

At last I found my way out into the garden. I went over to the wall; the far mountains in the direction of Mordor were covered by dark clouds, and I shivered with cold. There was a heaviness to the air, as if a thunderstorm were brewing.

_Today fate would decide. Today the Dark Lord would fall._

Today Damrod might very well die.

"Child?"

I turned and found Mardil standing behind me. The wind had tousled his thin, white hair and ruffled it up to an aureole around his head.

"Ioreth told me you are not well. Have you already seen Oroher?"

I shook my head. Something very strange was happening; Mardil's voice faded, becoming faint and far away and then coming back to buzz in my head, devoid of meaning. His face went small, as if I were looking through the wrong end of a telescope… then it grew to grotesque size, hovering above me like a giant balloon.

"Mardil…" I said. _"Mardil…"_

I felt my knees buckle beneath me. I stumbled forward in the direction of the herb master and he tried to catch me, but his hand closed on my bandaged right arm.

The pain was sickening and I screamed. I heard him exclaim, "For heaven's sake, _child…"_ and then I fainted.

vvvvvThe eagles came that afternoon, flying over the city with their gigantic wings gilded by the sunshine, and they proclaimed the victory. And then all the bells in Minas Tirith were ringing, and men gathered in the streets, giddy with excitement or stunned speechless by relief. As evening fell, lamps were lit all over the city and no one went to bed until far into the night; past midnight when everyone finally went to rest, they slept in real peace for the first time in many weeks.

But I saw and heard none of it; I lay half conscious in one of the sickrooms in the Houses of Healing. My misgivings about my arm had been prescient: the apparent healing had been skin-deep only, and the flesh below was putrid with suppuration which now broke out in a raging fever. Oroher opened the wound again and cleaned it thoroughly, washed it out with brandy and inserted a thin pinfeather to allow the ichor to drain off. The whole operation was agonizing, made bearable only by a large dose of poppy juice, and I spent the next few days drugged and sleepy. Now and then I opened my eyes to faces leaning over me, but always they drifted away before I could make out who they were. And there were voices sometimes, familiar but unidentifiable. In truth I was too weary to care. My universe shrank to the confines of my own body and the injury that had developed an evil life of its own.

The days went slowly by, and all over the city the work of repair began. The ruined houses in the first and second circles were torn down and rebuilt. Out on the Pelennor the last corpse fires were burning, and the peasants waited impatiently to cultivate their fields, that there might be at least a small crop this harvest. The families that had been evacuated to the south before the siege returned to Minas Tirith, and the streets I had found so forsaken hummed with bustling activity.

Some time near the beginning of April I woke up one morning to find Merry standing by my bed. He was like an explosion of life in the quiet, shadowed room; his eyes glowed with joy and when he saw that I was awake he took my hand.

"You were right!" he exclaimed. "Pippin is alive, he survived the last battle -- but not unharmed, as you said. They tell me a troll fell on him."

"How wonderful." I smiled faintly. "That he lives, I mean... not the mishap with the troll."

Merry grinned, but then his face grew serious again.

"But you are not well. The warden told me that your wound has been inflamed..."

"I'm sure it will be better soon," I said. I felt sunk in weakness and struggled to keep up my end of the conversation. "And you... what are you doing? Are you going to Cormallen?"

He gave me a piercing look. "Until half an hour ago I had no idea where I'm going today," he said slowly. "One day you will explain to me where all your knowledge comes from."

"One day," I said. "But now now. Give my best regards to Pippin when you see him. And..."

_...don't be too horrified when you see Frodo for the first time._ I forced the words back just in time, helplessly cursing the poppy juice that made it so difficult to think clearly.

"And...?"

"Nothing." I closed my eyes. "May you have a pleasant journey, Merry Brandybuck. And if you see a tall ranger named Damrod, with grey eyes and long black hair, tell him that I love him."

"I will."

Once more I felt the gentle pressure of his hand on mine, before he went silently out and the door closed behind him.

_Where are you, my love? Are you still alive?_

I sighed, let my head sink back into the pillow, and slept.

*****  
A week later the fever spiked again, and it went very high. Again for days on end I was only half conscious, and in my delirium I wandered endlessly across the battlefield. Again and again I relived the attack and the terrible panic, the fierce resolution that I would not give in without a fight and the moment when my tormentor died. I tossed so violently in my bed that Oroher feared I would do myself more injury, and at last he had the healers restrain me with belts of padded leather.

Then one day I opened my eyes again and saw a face framed by dark hair leaning over me. _A man's face, and it looked nearly like..._

"Damrod?"

I tried in vain to lift my hand. Fingertips smoothed my brow, their touch cool and pleasant, and then the face withdrew. Another one appeared -- surely this was Ioreth -- and a hand came behind my head, raising it. A mug was pressed against my lips. I drank and the bitter flavor of willowbark tea filled my mouth, slightly softened with honey.

"How long has she been in this state?"

"For several days now, Lord Faramir. We keep trying to bring down the fever, but we haven't been very successful as yet."

_Faramir._

Could he tell me something of Damrod? If he was well? If he was -- wounded?

I wanted to ask him, but when I opened my mouth another mug was there, and this time I tasted the sweet, heavy poppy syrup. I swallowed and tried to speak again, but the fever made my head swim and I only managed a soft whimper.

"Will she recover?"

"We are doing all we can for her, but she is very weak."

My mind ricocheted backward._ A field full of corpses... a man pinning me against the ground... a knife in my hand and my raised arm... and the heavy body falling across me. _I felt my back arch as if I tried to shake him off once more and I clenched my teeth; my breath was a hissing moan. Careful hands wrapped me in cold, damp cloths as I sank deeper into swoon.

_Hands. The hands of another man, tender and gentle... a clear, beautiful face above me and another body, miraculously melting into mine... tender touch and tender kisses, deep and thrilling..._

The tension left my body and I relaxed, at peace.

_Damrod._

******

After that day it went better. The fever abated little by little and the wound healed properly at last. My appetite returned and Ioreth carried trays of delicacies from the kitchen, delighted to see me eating again.  
It was a week before Oroher removed the pinfeather, and another week before Alandel carried me out into the garden. And there I was again in the same chair where once before I had spent a whole day in the sunshine. Around midday I saw the young Steward of Gondor passing by with his bride.

And she was his bride, beyond any doubt. They walked close together, and their devotion was nearly palpable. At some point while I lay fighting the fever, Eowyn must have let go of her futile dreams and turned toward life... and toward the man who loved her so patiently. I watched them from my chair, weary but contented, and suddenly Faramir glanced my way and saw me. They turned and came toward me across the lawn.  
"Noerwen!" The Steward smiled with real joy. "So you are better at last! I was concerned..."

"I know," I replied. "You visited me once, I think."

"That's true." He looked at Eowyn, his gaze embracing her, and I saw a smile curling the corners of her mouth. She dropped down unceremoniously on the grass, taking no care for her white dress. It was a lovely thing, woven with blue and silver threads, and it flowed down her body like cool water. Surely it would suffer grass stains if she did not get up at once, but instead she drew Faramir down beside her. He sat down without complaint, smiling at her.

"My bride Eowyn, the White Lady of Rohan," he said, and his eyes shone with pride.

"Milady..." I raised my shoulders slightly, glad that the heavy pain in my right arm was now a thing of the past. "I would like to bow properly, but I'm afraid I can't even get up."

She laughed softly.

"Never mind." Her voice was bright, pleasant and clear. I could hardly reconcile her lovely, serene appearance with the description I knew so well from Tolkien. Nor could I imagine her standing above her dead uncle with sword in hand, daring to face down a living nightmare.

_Neither had I ever imagined myself slitting a man's throat. _

A shudder ran down my spine and I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting back the wave of revulsion. Then I looked directly into Faramir's face and asked the question that had haunted me for weeks.

"Have you had news of your men? Are they well? Do you know something about..." I hesitated "... Damrod of Ithilien?"

His face clouded. "I don't know very much," he said. "I heard that some rangers fell in the battle. Mablung is dead."

I felt the blood draining from my face. _Mablung, who returned from Osgiliath with an ugly slash across his forehead, but alive. I had seen him marching in through the gates of the city. His would had not even had time to fully heal, before he was slain. _

"And Damrod?"

"I will not lie to you." He looked at me with earnest, worried eyes. "We know nothing certain as yet. There are still many wounded being tended to, and the lists of the dead are not complete. We will not have a full accounting of our losses until the army returns with the king."

"I understand," I said. "Thank... thank you." My voice failed. I felt numb, the old familiar panic creeping in, ready to overwhelm me.

Unexpectedly Eowyn came to my rescue. "Don't be afraid," she said. "Faramir has spoken often of Damrod. He is a redoubtable warrior: strong, deliberate and fast. He would survive." Her fingers closed around my hand and I felt her strength and courage like velvet-covered steel. _The Shieldmaiden of Rohan... now she was shielding me. _

"Your hand is like ice," she said quietly. "And you're pale as death. You must go back inside; a meal and some sleep will do you good."

I didn't bother to explain that I had hardly done anything else, the last few days, but eat and sleep. Misery bore me down and I knew she was right. She called Alandel and he carried me back to my room. They tucked me into bed and Eowyn herself put heated stones under my covers to warm me. She stroked the hair gently back from my face before she bid me farewell and went out. And I gazed after her, struck by her tenderness and strength, before I let my head sink back wearily on my pillow. I had the odd impression that the light in the room had faded when she left.

_Where was he? Did he lie wounded in some field hospital? Or had he been left on the battlefield, fallen beside Mablung his friend? _

I pressed my face into my pillow, inhaling the lingering scent of lavender and chamomile and fresh linen.

_Damrod_.

*****

April was nearing its end and the city was a bright tumult of men and women, voices and music filling the streets that had been so empty. Anticipation hung in the air and even the Houses of Healing were infected with it. Rumors buzzed through the corridors and common rooms, and I realized suddenly how long it had been since Gondor last had a king... _nearly thousand years_. It was the beginning of a new age for them, and everyone was anxious to set eyes on their new sovereign.

On the eve of the first of May hardly anyone went to bed; torches and lamps burned everywhere and music echoed in the streets. I stood at the wall of the sixth circle looking down on the merry confusion of colour and light. Someone nearby was playing a piercingly sweet melody on a flute, and I listened for a while, looking out across the battlement onto the Pelennor. It was twinkling with lights from the half-rebuilt homesteads, and close to the city a vast encampment of tents spread out. During the day I had noted the pennants fluttering there: the white horse on a field of green for Rohan, the swan spreading his wings on shining blue for Dol Amroth, and of course the King's banner, the white tree and the stars flaming against sable black.

I might have gone down to the gate with Ioreth. Her cousin had arrived from Imloth Melui, and when I saw them sitting in the garden, their heads together in animated conversation, I was glad that I knew so much more about the life here than what could be found in the books.

_They had become so precious to me, all of them. But the one I loved most of all... did he yet live?_

I did not go down with everyone else to see the King crowned. I might have met Gandalf again, Merry and Pippin... I could have seen Aragorn, Frodo, Sam...

But I was not sure if I would see Damrod there, and I could not endure not seeing him. Asking again. Knowing for certain that he had fallen.

So I holed up in Mardil's storeroom. He had not gone down either; ships had come up the Anduin, carrying herbs and oils he had been wanting for a long time, and he could not wait to unpack them and put them away. I helped him, pouring eucalyptus oil and essence of fennel from huge jars into small phials, and entering the new supplies on the lists I had created when I first began working in the Houses of Healing. We didn't talk much. I knew well enough that Mardil was watching me, but I didn't feel like answering questions.

At last, late in the forenoon, there were footsteps and voices outside the door. When I lifted my head, a small, gloriously caparisoned figure in the white and green of the Riddermark had entered the room on silent feet and stood before me.

_"Merry!_" I set the freshly filled bottle carefully on the table. "My goodness, that is really..._ impressive."_

He smiled, his eyes sparkling. "I think I've found something that belongs to you," he said.

"What..."

His smile widened and he stepped aside. Someone appeared from the shadows behind him and stepped forward into the broad stripe of sunlight streaming in the window.

_Dusty boots of soft suede. Silver armor half hidden under a long, dark green cloak. And... a face that I knew. _

I stood, feeling for the back of my chair. The words I wanted to say died in my throat and I stumbled as I stepped forward, crashing against the table. The jar of oil tipped over and abruptly the room was filled with an intense aroma of oranges.

"Here I am, my heart," said Damrod.

I took another step and my knees folded beneath me. He was there before I could fall, catching me in his arms, and I began to weep. Through a veil of tears I stared at him, raising a trembling hand to touch his cheek, and the warm roughness of his stubbled beard seemed to strike sparks in me. Tears ran down my face and into my mouth, and then his lips were on mine and I forgot everything else.

Vaguely behind me I heard Merry whistling what sounded like the jolliest tune ever written.


	11. Bright like a star

**11. Bright like a star**

_I stood in the middle of a green field, as vast as the cloudless sky that arched over my head. There were homesteads scattered about on the wide plain, and a guarded wall with many high gates stretched before me. Behind it lay a city that gleamed white as snow in the bright sunlight._Please.

This had to be the Pelennor Fields, but there was no sign now of the scars of war. There were orchards, the fruit on them hanging ripe and rich, and between the orchards wheat fields stretched to the horizon, ready for harvest.

But of course – the battles were all over and there was peace, and Elessar reigned in Gondor. The road lay before me, across the Rammas Echor to Minas Tirith. It could not be a long way, and it was pleasant besides. I strolled towards the city, sniffing with pleasure the scent of ripe apples that filled the air.

Suddenly a white mist obscured the landscape, so dense that I could barely see my feet on the paved road. I felt my way forward, blind, and suddenly there was gravel under my feet. The mist broke up and drifted away in tatters, and I saw that day had become night. There was a pond before me, yellow and white lights reflected on its dark surface.

Oh no. No.

I turned instinctively and ran back, but the park behind me was gone, and gone also was the sun-drenched Pelenor. A wall rose before me, solid and black, and in the midst of it was an immense iron gate. The metal glowed silver, highlighting intricate fittings that looked as if they were formed of delicately wrought Elven runes. I banged on the gate with all my strength, but it didn't budge and I stood breathing heavily, leaning against the cold metal.

No, please.

_I threw myself against it once more, beating on it with the flat of my hands and then with clenched fists, screaming._

"No! Don't do this to me – please don't do this to me!"

Damrod was behind that wall._ The knowledgw was like a blow to my heart._

"Let me in! Oh please let me in –" But the gate did not open, and there was no answer, only silence.

*****

"Noerwen?"

I sat up in bed, streaming with sweat and only half awake. The violent shiver that ran through my body made the wooden bedframe vibrate.

Slowly I understood: I was in my room in the Houses of Healing. I was still in Minas Tirith, still in Middle Earth.

And thank the Valar, Damrod was still here too.

With a shudder that was nearly a sob, I sank back into his embrace, my bare skin against his. I turned and clung to him convulsively, burying my face against his chest.

"What is it, my love?"

Slowly the shivering eased and I breathed more evenly. "It was a dream," I said softly. "Only a dream…"

"Of what?" He sounded hesitant, the dark voice I loved still a little hoarse with sleep. "The attack by the Gate?"

Several times in previous nights the memory of my tormentor had returned to haunt me, but I had not been alone; always I had found myself safe in Damrod's arms. His body was the best of cures, chasing away the brutal images. But now I shook my head; I could not tell him about this dream. It would raise too many questions, and I had no answers.

"Don't be afraid." He sighed and stretched under the light woolen blanket. "I'm here."

_But for how long?_

"I know. I know you are, my love."

In a few minutes he slept once more; I could hear the deep rhythm of his breath and feel his arms around me, heavy with sleep. I lay rigid, trying not to wake him again, listening to the slow, steady heartbeat close beneath my ear and staring into the darkness with my eyes wide open.

*****

Damrod had to leave after breakfast to spend the forenoon with the Rangers of Ithilien. Watching him go, I realized suddenly that soon he would return home, to Ithilien. I followed him with my eyes, noting the easy grace of his walk, the straightness of his back and the set of his shoulders. His body was painfully familiar, as if I had known him for years, and yet it was as if I saw him today for the very first time.

Weeks had passed since the unforgettable evening when he stood in the doorway of the herb storeroom. Spring had given way to summer and Mid-Year's Day had passed, the King's wedding day. Minas Tirith had burst into flower in every colour of the rainbow, and even with so much damage from the battle, the stone city was beautiful. And my arm was nearly healed; several days ago I had gone back to work in the Houses of Healing.

As long as Damrod was in Minas Tirith he served in Faramir's guard, accompanying the young Steward and riding out with the patrols. But each evening he returned to the sixth circle, and I stood in the entrance of the Houses and watched him coming through the gardens. And still he took my breath away, every time.

"Noerwen?"

I turned my head in surprise and saw Gandalf standing beside me. I hadn't heard him coming.

"Lord!" I bowed to him, beaming. "I have barely seen you these last weeks – you must have been very busy."

"So to speak." A faint smile played about his mouth. "I had to take care of certain affairs with King Elessar."

I simply couldn't resist the temptation. "You haven't accidentally found a sapling of the White Tree?" I asked innocently.

Gandalf cleared his throat. "Quite accidentally," he said. "Indeed." He shot me a sharp glance. "I think it is time we had a talk."

"Now?"

"That is what I came for. I want you to come to my house. The Hobbits are away today, and we shall not be disturbed."

I followed him without arguing. The old wizard moved with astonishing speed, and by the time we reached the house he shared with the Hobbits I was out of breath. Gandalf opened the door and stood aside for me to enter.

The corridor was floored with stone tiles; on the left side someone had put up a row of clothes hooks low on the white plastered wall, but they were empty at the moment. Gandalf led the way into a large kitchen, sunlight streaming into the room through wide windows. The fireplace was cold and clean, a kettle waiting on the hob for tea time. The center of the room was filled by a huge wooden table, well scrubbed, surrounded by half a dozen stools. In the middle of the table was a brown clay bowl full of June apples.

"Sit down, Noerwen."

I perched on one of the low stools and he sat down opposite me, propping his elbows on the table and looking at me. As he had done the first time we met, he plumbed my heart and soul with his eyes, and once again I knew it would be useless to resist. After a while he drew back, breaking eye contact, and sat silent for a long time with his head bowed. Outside a cart rolled by,and the shrill, sweet song of a blackbird came through the window along with the rattling of wooden wheels on the stone street.

At last he looked up. "It is a dangerous game you are playing, child. You do know that?"

I felt my body tense. "What do you mean?" I asked guardedly.

He sighed. "You are an astonishing woman, Noerwen." he said. "You have assimilated yourself to our world so thoroughly, it is almost as if you were born here. You make it easy for people to forget that you have no past, that no one actually knows where you came from. And in the terrible time that we hope is over now, you have rendered outstanding service. I spoke to Oroher, to Ioreth and the other healers; there is hardly anyone in the Houses of Healing who does not feel the greatest respect for you."

"Thank you," I said with a faint smile. "But surely you did not bring me here to sing my praises."

"No," he said. "I have brought you here to warn you."

"Against what?"

"Perhaps against your own heart." The wizard got up and began to pace back and forth. "You have made yourself of use here. You have helped me, as well, and that more than once. But regardless of the service you have rendered, what you are doing now is dangerous."

"You are speaking in riddles." I stared down at my hands resting on the table, clenched so tight that my knuckles shone white. With agonizing certainty I knew what he would say next.

"I am speaking of Damrod, as you know." Gandalf's voice was soft but penetrating. "You must not bind yourself to anyone here, Noerwen. We do not know that you will be allowed to stay in Middle Earth. As I could find time during these last weeks, I have studied the ancient writings, trying to find out if there have been cases like yours before. I have found no record of such a thing – only you, and of course the _Pengolodh."_

He stopped pacing, and his hand, aged-looking but strong, took me by the chin and raised my head to look him in the eyes. I stared blindly, desperately; there was deep pity in his gaze, but also truth, naked and deadly as a sharpened sword.

"You will have to go back," he said. "Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week… maybe not for a year or more. Will you leave a grieving husband behind you, his wife vanished without warning, and who knows why or where? And perhaps not a husband only; perhaps children…

"The_ Pengolod_h has a family, I know. Perhaps this is why he can go back and forth so effortlessly between the worlds. He is rooted in his world; he knows where he belongs. But you, Noerwen…"

He squatted down before me, sitting back on his heels, and I heard the soft creak of protesting joints. "You put yourself in danger, and not yourself alone. You have one single opportunity. Put an end to it as quickly and painlessly as you can."

"Painlessly?" I stared at him, torn between rage and helplessness. "Do you think I could do that to him? Do you really believe it would end without pain?"

"No." He sighed. "It will not be painless. But the longer you wait, the worse it will be for both of you. This is not your home, child. If you continue to ignore that fact, you are going to rip yourself to pieces."

"I can't," I whispered. "I love him. I love him so much." I was shaking as with a chill, and he took my trembling hands between his for a moment, holding them firmly.

"My dear child," he said gently, "I have watched you caring for those who raved in fever, stitching horrible wounds, encouraging a hobbit far from home and nearly in despair. You held the hand of a dying warrior and sent him comforted to his fathers. You do not lack for courage." His hand rested briefly on my head, a swift, tender touch that brought tears to my eyes.

"I know you love him. And for that very reason you must send him away, quickly. It is the most merciful, the most loving thing you can do for him."

He got up and went out without saying anything more. But I sat where I was, staring at the wooden table without seeing it.

vvvvv

Damrod returned early in the afternoon. I had intended to wait for him as I always did, in the herb gardens, but found myself pacing up and down like a wild beast in a cage. So I fled to Mardil's storeroom, my refuge, and tried to calm myself by entering the new supplies on my list. Half an hour later he found me there.

"Every time I think of you, I imagine I smell the scent of herbs," he said, smiling. There was a bowl of dried lavender in front of me on the desk, and he reached in and rubbed some of the blossoms between his fingers before he laid his hand against my cheek. I sighed, turning my head to kiss his palm and breathing in the sweet fragrance.

"Every time I think of_ you _–" I gazed into his face and whatever I had meant to say stuck in my throat._ Lady of stars, how I loved this man! And soon, soon! how I would have to wound him…_

"Don't look at me like that, my heart," he said suddenly, his voice very soft. "Or I will forget that I wanted to take you for a meal, and carry you away to somewhere else entirely." He laughed a little breathlessly, and I laid my hand on top of his for a moment. Then I drew away and closed my book.

"I must speak to you, Damrod." I got up. "It is time I told you something."

The expression on my face must have warned him that this was serious.

"Here?" he asked, but I shook my head.

"No, in the gardens. I need some fresh air."

We went out, and all the way up the stairs and through the corridor I could feel him looking at me from the corner of his eye. But he said nothing, and then we were in the gardens, walking over the freshly raked paths to the wall. I leaned against it and looked at him. My heart thumped heavily in my chest; I was afraid. But somehow I must do this thing, and I prayed silently that Gandalf was not mistaken about my courage.

"You must promise me something," I said. "That you try to believe me, even if it is difficult. That you don't cut me off. And…" I swallowed hard. "…that you do not leave before I have finished."

"Is it that bad?" A faint smile flashed in his eyes, but then it faded and he frowned with growing concern. He took a step toward me and I knew he wanted to take me in his arms, but I stiffened and shook my head.

"Bad enough," I said. "Help me, Damrod. Just listen to me. Please. And then you may ask me anything you want. Will you do this for me?"

"Of course." His face was attentive, waiting.

"You remember the day you found me, with your comrades and Lord Faramir?"

He nodded.

"Well… I had not lost my memory. That was as false as my miserable masquerade as a boy. I knew exactly who I was, and where I came from. What I did not know, is where I was…"

vvvvv

I don't remember how long I spoke. At first I stood close to the wall, but then I began pacing back and forth. When I described the first night conversation with Gandalf, Damrod leaned against a flowering chestnut that grew close to the wall. He crossed his arms across his chest, his face gradually losing all expression. My heart sank, but I went on talking while the sun rose behind me, warming my back. When I finished at last, a deep silence fell between us.

"You say Gandalf knew about this? From the beginning?" His voice was flat.

_At least he believed me!_

"Yes," I said. I was a little hoarse; it had been eternities since I held such a monologue. "He could read my thoughts. He saw my rage at Denethor, for how he treated Faramir."

Damrod raised his head and shot me a look. "Did you know that he was mad? That he would try to burn is son alive?"

"Yes," I said. My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. "And before you ask – I knew of the useless attack on Osgiliath, the siege and the battle before the Black Gate, and I knew that the Ring would go into the fire. I knew it all before… or at least most of it. As I told you – it was all written down."

I tried to meet his eyes, but he would not look at me. "I was so afraid of doing something wrong. I was afraid to start something that I would not be able to stop. I have never been so frightened in my entire life."

I saw the muscles in his cheeks harden. "Do I appear in the book this man wrote?" he asked softly.

"Yes," I said. "But only on a few pages, together with Mablung. The Pengolodh described how you guarded the Ringbearer and his companion in Ithilien."

Suddenly he laughed, but it was a bitter, angry sound.

"So I am on the margins of the story only; I merit no more than a short remark."

"Not for me," I said.

He took a deep breath, his fists clenched at his sides. "And the other man your Pengolodh mentioned on those few pages, he died in my arms._ He was my friend._ And now tell me one more thing: is it possible that you will vanish as suddenly as you appeared?"

I hung my head. "Yes."

I would have given a year of my life to have him come close at that moment and touch me, but he didn't move. "I would not think of it. I have felt so much at home here, so much in the right place! But Gandalf advised me… no, he ordered me… to tell you. He made me see how quickly I might be ripped from your side."

"He ordered you? Tell me one thing, Noerwen: if he had not ordered you, how long would you have waited to tell me?" Now he came to me, now I felt his hands – but not with the gentleness I had learned to expect from him. His hands closed around my arms like a vise, hard and merciless. "Look at me! How long would you have waited?"

I raised my head and looked him in the face, and if he had not been holding on to me I would have staggered backward. The icy anger and injury in his eyes were like a fist driving into my face.

_"How long?_ Until I asked you to be my wife? Until I brought you home to Ithilien? Until you were carrying our child? Or would you have waited until it was born?" The words were like the strokes of a whip, and I stared at him numb with pain and horror.

_Gandalf had warned me! And he was right; the old wizard was always right!_

"And I_ would _have asked you." He let go of me so abruptly that I swayed and nearly fell. "I am not the man for a little wenching in time of war. You have been more to me than any woman I have ever known, and I wanted you for my own. And you have encouraged me! You have kissed me, you have –"

He stared into my face and the rage in his eyes was mingled with a sort of contempt. "…you have taken me into your bed," he said flatly. "Was that a game? Is that the custom in your world?"I was nearly screaming. "No, Damrod, no! _I love you! _I am sorry, so terribly sorry… I didn't want to hurt you. And I was so happy, so glad that you were here by me. I was so afraid of losing you…"

"No!"

"Now…" His voice broke and he began again. "If you had told the truth from the beginning, I would have had some choice. But no, you said nothing, you let make a fool of myself.

He stepped forward suddenly and grabbed me a second time, pressing me against the wall. Then he kissed me, but this kiss was without tenderness, this kiss was full of rage and pain and despair. He forced my lips apart and in sudden terror I tried to duck my head, to push him away. He was like iron, unyielding, and I was helpless against him. And then he stepped back, panting, and we stared at one another. My wild horror was mirrored in his eyes, and my breath was as laborious as his.

"I had better go," he said hoarsely. "I don't want to do something I will be sorry for later. I don't want to hurt you as you have hurt me. I think I already have enough to regret, Noerwen."

He turned on his heel and left the garden, and I followed him with my eyes. He did not look back, and when he was gone my legs folded beneath me and I fell to my knees beside the wall.

vvvvv

I can't remember how long I knelt there in the grass. I was numb.

I had known it was a risk, telling him the truth. I had been anxious lest he not believe me, or even that he might be frightened at such a strange tale. Only one thing had not occurred to me: that this gentle, tender man would look upon me with such anger and contempt.

_I don't want to hurt you the same way you hurt me_.

At last I dragged myself to my feet, holding onto the wall. The Pelennor lay before me in the afternoon sun, already green with the young wheat bending in the wind, first fruit of the farmers' efforts now that peace was here.

_I already have enough to regret._

A painful sob rose in my throat. He had walked away like someone who had no plans to return. I writhed in agony, clinging with both hands to the wall. For months I had basked in the dream that I had found a home, a refuge, and now this man dearest to my heart had destroyed my illusive safety in a single blow.

"Are you unwell? May I help you?"

_Please no. Not now, not here._

"Merry." I tried to suppress the sharpness in my voice, answering without turning to face him. "No, you cannot help me. Not unless you have just realized that you do not know where you belong, that the way home seems as impossible to you as flying to the moon. Not unless your heart is torn apart with homesickness, and yet you are afraid to walk in your own front door. And none of that applies to you and never will, so please leave me in peace."

There was a long silence before he said quietly, "I think I can roughly imagine what you are talking about."

I turned slowly. It was not Merry.

He was a hobbit, but far shorter than the young knight of Rohan, and thinner. His hair was darker, too, but silver threads shone in his brown curls, catching the sun. He was older than Merry, that was clear, but his face was neither old nor young and his eyes were quiet and attentive. A half smile curled the corner of his mouth when he met my eyes, and I looked down to where his shirt was open at the throat, revealing a delicate silver chain that hung around his neck. I glanced at his hand then, and saw that his right hand was bandaged.

I felt the blood drain out of my face, and the ground seemed to rock beneath my feet. If I could have vanished on the instant by my own power, I would have done so.

_This was Frodo Baggins, This was the Ringbearer, offering me his help, and my answer was ingratitude and incivility._

"I'm sorry," I stammered. "I thought you were Merry..."

"That explains everything, of course." The faint smile deepened to a grin. "Catch him in the right mood, and my cousin can be a real plague."

"Oh no," I said hastily, "not to me. On the contrary, he is clever and friendly. I like him very much."

He peered up at me, then nodded slightly. "You must be Noerwen . "Merry and Pippin both spoke of you, and Merry described you to me – and he described you in glowing colors, I might add."

"Really?" At the thought of Merry's strength and joy, his rollicking humour, my heart rose a little, in spite of everything. "That is one dangerous guy. I'll wager he stirs up plenty of trouble amont the lasses when he's at home."

He grinned again. "I can't speak for the Shire, but I've heard some stories from Buckland that are quite unsuitable for a lady's ears."

"Then you must tell me," I said at once, and we looked in each other's faces and began to laugh. And all the while some part of me stood to one side, hardly believing that this was happening to me. Stunned amazement for this precious moment had driven sorrow and fear out of my heart. _Frodo. Frodo Baggins of the Shire_! It was simply unbelievable that he was standing before me, solid and real and laughing.

Now I had the chance to look at him closely, I could see that he was really too thin, especially for a hobbit. And age was marked more explicitly in his face than I had thought at first. When he smiled, crowsfeet appeared by his eyes, and there were deep lines from his nose down to the corners of his mouth.

"Do I have dirt on my face?" he asked suddenly. "For you keep staring at me, as if I must have."

I felt myself blushing.

"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I'm afraid that examining people is an occupational disease, Perhaps Merry told you that I work in the Houses of Healing."

He sighed. "Yes, he did – but please _don't _ask me how I am! Everyone does, constantly, and if it were up to my dear Sam Gamgee, I would spend my days packed into a chair wrapped in enough blankets to make me look like a cocoon." He glanced at me sideways in humorous resignation. "Would you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Just sit down with me a little while, and if you want to carry your kindness to extremes, tell me first where I might find something to eat. My appetite still isn't what it used to be, but I think I've missed elevenses and lunch both, and I'm getting hungry."

I smiled at him. "I'll fetch you something. I have good connections in the refectory of the Houses. If I remember correctly, the cook made meat pastries and nutcake this morning; does that sound good?"

"More than good," he said, grinning. "I've heard about those meat pastries from Pippin. He's raided the refectory more than once already, and I expect he'll be banned from the kitchens before much longer."

"I'll be right back," I said.

vvvvv

When I asked about Pippin, the cook laughed.

"Such a nice little fellow, and always so_ hungry!" _She admitted she had gotten in the habit lately of baking an extra tray of the pastries so highly appreciated by the hobbits. And when she understood that the Ringbearer was sitting outside in the garden hoping for a snack, she didn't stop with a simple tray. I carried away a big willow basket full of meat pastries wrapped in paper, fresh nutcake and small apple pies, nicely glazed with sugar icing. Besides that she put in fresh dark bread and creamy butter in a clay pot, a large piece of cheese, and a crock of jam. And somehow in the crevices that were left she wedged a bottle of wine and a jar of chilled beer, with a couple of mugs. By the time I had lugged the laden basket up the stairs and out to the garden, my arms were nearly pulled out of their sockets.

Frodo was leaning on the wall, looking out over the Pelennor. I dropped the basket with a thump, caught the beer jar before it tipped over, and collapsed on the grass. He turned around with a smile, and I gazed up at him almost in awe; the afternoon sun surrounded his head with a corona, shining and golden like the gloriole in a Byzantine painting.

"Now then, Frodo Baggins," I said breathlessly, "the cook is clearly concerned that you need feeding up."

His eyes twinkled. "She may be right at that."

The Ringbearer sat down across from me, stretching his legs out comfortably on the cropped grass and inspecting the contents of the basket. The next quarter hour was very quiet, as he enjoyed the pastries with a blissful expression. Neither did he despise the beer, and afterwards he moved on to bread and cheese and jam. Only then did he notice that I had eaten nearly nothing.

"Have some nutcake while there's still any left," he said.

He uncorked the wine carefully and filled one of the mugs. He handed it to me, and I drank obediently. The wine was white, cool and faintly spicy, strange and wonderful at the same time. I bit into the cake, and he watched me pensively.

He must wonder why I was drooping against the wall like a portrait of lost love – before I nearly bit his head off. But whatever he was thinking, he said nothing; he only watched as I sipped my wine and slowly finished my meal.

Finally I emptied the mug with a single gulp and looked back at him.

"I had an argument before, with someone I care for very much," I said. Frodo deserved some explanation for my rudeness. "I had kept a secret from him for a long time, and today I told him. He didn't take it very well."

"You didn't part in friendship?"

"No, not in friendship, let alone in love." Suddenly my eyes were burning.

"Oh." He poured himself some wine, and I wondered if he really understood what I was talking about. He had lived alone all his life, and when he sailed to the Undying Lands a little more than two years from now, he would not leave behind any family of his own.

"Sometimes you have to be silent," he said thoughtfully, "not to hurt the ones you love. The truth is a sharp sword. It can cause terrible wounds."

I looked at him in amazement; it was as if he had read my thoughts.

"How…?" I stopped when our eyes met. For one small moment I saw behind that calm face, and he didn't move, but then he looked away as if I had caught him out. "Is it hard for _you_ to be silent?" I asked finally.

"Well…" The corners of his mouth rose in that half smile that I already recognized. "Probably easier than to speak, at least with those I love."

I waited.

"They are so _concerned_, all of them," he said suddenly, and now the lines of exhaustion were clearly to be seen. "If I have a bad night, if my shoulder aches, or my neck – I try to hide it, if only to keep them from constantly asking me how I am. But I know they're watching me, every step I take, every word I say; if I eat a lot, or little, or nothing."

He looked down at the remnants of the cook's picnic, which made a still life on the lawn before us. "To be honest, this was the first time in weeks that I've been really hungry," he confessed.

I took the bottle and filled his mug before I served myself. I could feel the wine slowly going to my head… I was not drunk, certainly, but it was as if we sat inside an iridescent bubble, Frodo Baggins and I. His amazing frankness with me, a stranger… the fact that no one came to disturb us, even though the gardens normally were rather crowded at this time of the day… it all seemed as unreal as a dream.

"Do you dream sometimes?" he asked, and once more it was as if he had read my mind. "And do you remember your dreams?"

"Rarely," I said. "Except the dream I had last night – that one I remember."

"Tell me." He looked at me intently. "Tell me yours, and I will tell you mine."

"I dreamed of a gate," I said. "And I stood on the wrong side of it. I was outside, and I wanted to get in, but I couldn't, not anymore. I screamed and beat against the gate, but no one heard me."

"And I…" He bowed his head for a moment, but then he looked up and met my eyes. "I rode my pony into Hobbiton and around the hill, the hill with Bag End, my home."

I nodded.

"It was spring in the dream, and all the trees were blooming… I rode up the path to the garden gate." His voice was very soft now and I had to lean forward to hear him. "I dismounted and tied the pony, and I went through the garden to the door. The door of Bag End is round and green, and it was opened just a crack. And just as I was about to enter, a hobbit came out, and it was someone I had never seen before. He stared at me, and I realized he didn't know me any more than I knew him."

He drank, and I poured the rest of the wine into his mug. Now he didn't look at me anymore; his eyes followed the images in his mind. "I said, _'Who lives here?' _And he stared at me as if I were mad._ 'Well, me,' _he said. _'Me and my family.' – 'But didn't this smial belong to Bilbo Baggins once, and then to Frodo Baggins?' _I asked. He thought for a while, and then his face lit up as if he had remembered._ 'Ah, yes,' _he said. _'But that was a long time ago, mister. That was more than a hundred years ago._' And then I woke up."

He looked down, picking at the grass absently with his good hand, the one that was not bandaged. For a long time neither of us spoke, and I looked at him with sorrow as the shadows grew longer around us and the sunlight turned the color of molten copper.

"I'm homesick," he said at last, and I could hear the pain in his voice. "All I want is to get back to the Shire and pick up the threads of my life. I'm longing for my old familiar paths, the smell of the books in my study, the clattering of Sam's clippers in the garden… the sound of rain on the grassy roof, and the scent of the honeysuckle that hangs down over my bedroom window…" He sighed. "I want to go home."

"I know." I closed my eyes. Never had my knowledge burdened my heart so heavily. I knew he would never again be truly at home in the Shire. I knew how his shoulder would pain him, and the scar on the back of his neck, which he had not shown me. I knew even the very dates when his soul would wander in the mist, forlorn, yearning. I saw his way before me, a way that led out of the dreadful quest of the Ring and into the agonizing realization that of them all, he in the end would be the only one left with empty hands._ The Ringbearer, who was most worthy of reward…_

And then a sunbeam fell between us, and the silver chain lying against his chest flashed.

"What is that around your neck?"

He started, as if my question had called him back from a long way off, but then he slipped the chain over his head and handed it to me… a glittering rivulet of silver trickling into my palm, and at its end a great white jewel. The setting was crafted like a net of woven flowers, unbelievably delicate, and when the sun caught it the gem blazed between my fingers like a star fallen out of heaven.

"It is beautiful," I said in awe.

"A gift from the Queen," he said. When I gave it back to him, the jewel caught the light for a second time and sprayed a shower of rainbow sparks over our hands and faces. I felt a comforting warmth lingering where it had touched my skin.

"I can only speak for myself," I said finally, "but if I have learned one thing since I have been here, it is this: comfort and hope are often to be found where you do not expect them. This afternoon I have found both, and I want to thank you for that."

He looked at me in surprise, and then he smiled. He had a beautiful smile; it changed his face in an instant from shadow to sunshine, and this time the light came not from the wondrous Elven jewel but from somewhere deep inside himself.

"And I would thank you also. Farewell, Noerwen." He got up and bowed before he turned toward the gate, and I stood watching him until he vanished behind the hedge. A strange mix of joy and sadness filled my heart, and suddenly I recalled the words of Arwen when she gave him the gem.

_But in my stead you shall go, Ringbearer, when the time comes, and if you then desire it. If your hurts grieve you still and the memory of your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed.  
_  
„Farewell, Frodo Baggins." I said softly._ „Namarië, Iorhael."_

******

I collected the mugs and plates and cutlery into the basket, and went back to the house. I would not be on duty any more this day, but the evening stretched empty before me, and I would be alone. Perhaps I could lie down for a few hours and then offer to take over the night shift for someone else.

I passed down the long corridors to my room. Usually during the day Ioreth made sure that someone made my bed and dusted, and she never forgot to put a vase of fresh flowers on my desk. This afternoon it was a little blue jug of tea roses, and their sweet fragrance came to meet me as I opened the door. Beside the lush bouquet of yellow flowers was a plate of small cakes.

And then I saw that the room was not empty after all. Someone sat beside the desk, and as I closed the door behind me, he rose to his feet.

It was Damrod.


	12. Farewell in the dawn

**12. Farewell in the Dawn**

All in one day I had felt horror and great joy, disappointment and bitter shame, amazement and an unexpected, inexplicable peace. And now, looking at him, I felt nothing at all. For a few seconds I gazed at him as if he were a stranger. He looked pale, I noticed, tired and tense.

„What are you doing here?"

My voice sounded oddly impersonal even in my own ears, and I saw him wince.

"I wanted to speak to you," he said. "I lost my temper back there. I'm sorry."

"You had every right to lose your temper," I said quietly. "I ambushed you with a story that must sound completely insane, told you I could vanish at any moment – I can't blame you for being angry."

He bowed his head and took a deep breath.

"I… it…" His grey eyes were dark with sorrow.

"I felt as if you had used me, only to abandon me when you leave like a forgotten toy. But – you are not that sort of woman. I suppose I must have tramped through half of Minas Tirith these past few hours, thinking. And I remembered every single moment we have had together. I know you're not that sort of woman! You're friendly and clever, you're strong… and you are generous. That you took me for your lover…"

A faint smile played around the corners of his mouth. "You didn't use me, you _gifted_ me. And –"

He blushed. "— and I know that I was your first man. You never played with me; I should never have said that. And I should not have forced that… that embrace, that kiss, on you. I am ashamed, Noerwen. Can you forgive me for that?"

"Of course," I said softly. "I should have trusted you. It was not only your fault; I should have told you the truth earlier."

"You are generous… more than I deserve, I fear." He sighed, turning his back to me and going over to the window. "Still, one truth deserves another." He spoke so quietly that I had to step closer to hear him, but I didn't touch him.

"I am thirty-seven years old," he went on. "I told you that I grew up with Faramir… and when he took up his service in Ithilien, I volunteered for his company. That was nearly seventeen years ago. My mother was still alive then… My father built a house for her, before they were married, about a half hour's ride from Cormallen, on the banks of the Anduin. It is built of wood and stone, not very big, but still the rooms are spacious and bright. You can smell the scent of the cedar shingles on the roof, and hear the rushing and murmuring of the river…"

He laid back his head shortly, without turning back at me.

"When my mother died of consumption fifteen years ago, I closed up the house. By that time the rangers were already wandering around Ithilien like secret shadows, and the threat of Mordor was so dark that most of the people had drawn back to Minas Tirith, or further on into Lebennin. (1) There was a woman… she had often been a guest in our house during my mother's last years, and I liked her very much."

"Who was she?" I asked with some hesitation, not certain if I really wanted to know.

"Her name was Idril," he said. He turned around and looked at me directly. "She was a dainty little thing, pretty and vivacious, with a bit of a temper. She used to make jokes about me; she thought I was much too serious, and terribly slow."

There was a glint of laughter in his eyes, but it vanished almost at once.

"As it turned out, I was slow indeed. I was caught up in one skirmish after another with Faramir's company, for mobs of orcs were traipsing through Ithilien, a growing threat to those who refused to leave their homes. Finally Idril grew tired of waiting for me to declare myself, and she married one of the farmers who still remained.

"Were you very unhappy?" I asked cautiously.

He grimaced.

"Yes. I had taken her for granted for too long, and suddenly it was too late. I tried to put it behind me, and for some time I was transferred to Minas Tirith. Then the Steward decided to evacuate Ithilien completely, and one family after another moved slowly across the river to safety. But Idril's husband refused to leave."

His face was stiff; he turned away from me and I saw his hand clenched around the window sill as if he would force the imprint of his fingers into the very wood.

"Faramir told me about it, and I rode as fast as I could to Ithilien. Men of Gondor and two companies of the rangers kept the roads to the Anduin secure as good as possible, and I reached the farm just at evening. Idril was feeding the hens. She wanted to invite me in, give me a meal, but I refused. They hadn't even started to pack up their belongings. They acted as if nothing could harm them, as if everything I said, trying to get them to leave, was no more than the unreasoning panic of a child."

"You could not convince her?" I whispered. I did not want to hear the end of this story; already I guessed what it must be, but I would not stop him.

Damrod laughed harshly. "It was like arguing with a stone. She stood before her house, casting grain in a wide arc, while the chickens scratched the ground around her and pecked at my boots. I talked until I was hoarse, and she just smiled, without even looking up at me. And finally she came and put her hand on my chest, and cut me off right in the middle of a sentence. 'I will stay here,' she said. 'If Erestor will not leave his home, neither will I.'"

The room was very silent. I stepped behind him and gently touched his shoulder. For a moment he was tense, resistant, but then slowly his body relaxed.

"I rode back across the river that same night. Later on I learned that the farm was attacked and the house burned over their heads the very next day. They were both dead."

'I'm so sorry," I whispered. "How horrible…"

"Yes, it was horrible," he said. "And as I wandered around the city, trying to understand what you had told me – I thought of Idril again. All these years I have blamed myself for not speaking sooner, when I could have had her to wife. And wished that at least I had taken her away to safety that last night, even by force…"

He turned to me.

"I realized today that it wasn't my fault: she knew her own mind, and she challenged her own fate. But I don't want to make the same mistake a second time. In the years after Idril's death, I gradually accepted that I would never have a family of my own. The company was my home, the men were my brothers – Mablung, especially, and Faramir as well. And then suddenly you came, brave and loving and strong, and I could hardly believe the miracle of it."

"I know." I swallowed. "I felt the same way."

He took my hands between his. I stared up into his face, thinking how intense his gaze was, almost stern.

"I do not want to lose you," he said. "I don't want you to go back… _there._ But if I understood you correctly, there is nothing we could do to prevent it."

I shook my head, unable to speak.

"And I don't know if I would be able to follow ;you into your… your world," he continued. "Therefore we can count on only what we have now, this moment, and we must use the time that is given to us to be together. I received orders this afternoon to return home tomorrow; Faramir travels to Rohan with the White Lady to bury the old king, and we have much to prepare in Ithilien. I will open up my mother's house again, and put everything in order. And then, in no more than three weeks, I will return to Minas Tirith and take you with me."

I gasped. "Are you _certain, _my love? You would take that chance…"

"I am certain." His hands cupped my face gently, and then they slid down to my waist and he drew me into his arms. "I don't know if you will ever be my wife, according to law and custom. But you are mine, you will always be mine, whatever comes to pass." He spoke close to my ear, his voice soft but emphatic, his breath stirring wisps of hair against my cheek.

"You are crazy, and reckless, and gambling with fate. You should turn and run away from me as fast as you can manage… but I am so thankful that you don't." My voice was trembling between laughter and tears. "I love you so much that it hurts, do you know that, you madman?"

"Oh, yes, I know," he answered hoarsely. He lifted my chin with his hand and kissed me: no gentle, tender kiss this time, but a passionate attack on my mouth, urgent and fierce. The breath was caught in my throat and came out in a burst of heat when he released me at last.

"Ahhh…"

His mouth returned, and never in my life had I been kissed like this, not even by him. I felt his fingers unbuttoning my robe, stripping the shirt from my shoulders, and then his hands were everywhere, and my naked skin trembled to his touch. For a moment he drew away, and I heard the curtains pulled across the window, blocking out the late afternoon sun. The bolt on the door slid home, and I waited, motionless, with my eyes shut tight. And then he was beside me, lifting me, and his skin was bare against mine as he carried me to the bed.

"Noerwen… Noerwen… _my love_…" And he was above me, and then with a single, flowing movement he was in me, and I clung to him, overwhelmed at his onrush… and I understood that he was laying claim to me with every touch, with each powerful thrust… each centimeter of my skin his flesh, his woman, _his own._

And as he took possession of me, I was set aflame in his arms as a forest fire leaps from one treetop to another. All that he gave me I gave back with growing ferocity. I barely recognized my own voice, husky with passion, pleading for mercy and all the while begging for more, _more and more_, and he rose above me, moving faster and harder, and his eyes were open, never leaving my face. The mercy he gave me was sweet torture, and his fierce climax carried me away, redeeming us both.

He fell asleep afterward, still molten with me, and I pressed my face into the dark waves of his hair, savoring the good, vital smell of him. I thought about tomorrow, how he would be leaving, and I thought of Idril, whose love and stubbornness had brought about her death, and I was wracked with pity and understanding. _If it had been him...  
_  
I smoothed the hair away from his face and kissed his temple; he murmured something I could not catch and his arms closed more tightly around me as he sank back into his dreams.

_I would have stayed with the man I loved, the same as she did._

vvvvv

I woke up just before sunrise to a hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently. I opened my eyes to find a single candle burning on the desk, and Damrod leaning over me, fully clothed.

"What… is something wrong?"

"No, my heart, all is well. But the rangers will leave at first light, and I wanted to say goodbye."

I sat up, still half asleep.

"Why didn't you tell me yesterday evening?" I murmured, rubbing my face. He laughed softly.

"I didn't want to think of farewell, only of you," he said gently. He gathered my hair, loose and tousled over my naked breasts, and plaited it into a loose braid. All through the past weeks he had played with my hair, braiding it and combing it out again with his fingers, blunt and strong.

"I will miss you," I whispered.

"I'll be back soon, my dearest." He kissed me and ran his hands down my back caressingly before he stood up. "Will you get dressed and come out in the gardens with me before I leave? I have something for you."

So I slipped into my robe and sandals and followed him out. The herb garden was shiny white with dew, and rosemary and lavender filled the air with their strong, balsamic fragrance. As we went hand in hand among the garden beds, the eastern sky turned from a pale grey-blue to pink, heralding the sunrise.

I leaned against the wall, rough and chill against my back. A fresh wind coming down from the mountains blew strands of hair into my face, and Damrod stood smiling down at me with his hands in the pockets of his cloak.

"How lovely you are," he said. He drew one hand out of his pocket, holding up a small bag of dark blue velvet. He loosened the drawstring and up ended the bag; something small and shiny dropped into his palm. Then he reached for my right hand, and something cool and heavy slid onto my third finger.

I raised my hand to look at the ring he had given me, and caught my breath in wonder.

It was shaped like a natural tendril with delicate leaves, slender and narrow like a poplar, but the silver-colored metal gleamed bright and cool, like moonlight on the water. Brighter than any silver I had ever seen, and the tendril blossomed into a half-open flower whose outer petals formed the setting for a shining gem of deep, mossy green, clear and round as a forest pool.

"Damrod..." I was half bewildered at the gift; never had I seen any ring so beautiful, so obviously a precious heirloom.

"This is the ring my grandfather had made for my grandmother," Damrod said gently. "It is Dwarvish work.. My mother inherited it when my grandmother died, and she wore it to the last day of her life."

"You must not give this to me! What if I..." I could feel the tears welling into my eyes.  
_  
"Quiet,_ love." He took my face between his hands and silenced me with a kiss. "For years I had no hope that I would ever have a wife to wear this ring, and I _want_ to see it on your hand."

"Damrod..."

"Noerwen." He drew me close, gazing into my eyes. "Do you remember, I told you once that blind fear is the death of every warrior?"

I nodded, my face pressed into his soft doublet.

"It is the death of love, as well. My heart, I don't know why you came here, but I bless every day I have been able to hold you in my arms. I don't want to live in fear of losing you; I want to look forward with hope to a future with you by my side. You will live with me as my wife in Ithilien."

"Do you really believe it will happen?"

"I am sure of it." He smiled and stroked my hair. "We will build on a storage room for herbs, and the sick will come for you to help them. And in the evening we will sit on the bank of the Anduin, and I will as you all the questions we have no time for now. Then you will tell me about your world, and when it gets dark we will go inside and close the door behind us. I will make love to you, and you will fall asleep in my arms."

I listened as if to a dream, soothed and comforted by the steady confidence in his voice. Finally he raised my chin to look deep into my eyes.

"It was not a coincidence that you came here, my love," he said. "With all my heart I believe this, just as I believe that I will come and bring you back with me in a few short weeks. I will send a message first, so you can be ready."

He kissed me once more, tender and lingering, and I clung to him, my senses full of his warmth, the scent of his body and the pulsing life of his skin beneath my fingers. Then he stepped back.

"Good-bye, my Noerwen." His eyes held me still, even though his arms hung at his sides. "Soon, my heart."

"Soon," I repeated. "I love you, Damrod."

He turned and walked away. I watched until he vanished behind the hedge that bordered the herb garden; then I leaned against the wall again. It took nearly an hour before the troop of rangers rode out through the gate below me, but I did not leave my place until I saw the men on their horses - six ranks, four abreast, all clad in dark green and brown, one hardly to be told from another in their uniforms, and all of them growing ever smaller as they followed the narrowing road across the Pelennor. When I could no longer see them at all, I turned finally to go back in the house.

vvvvv

It was fortunate that I had no time to give in to melancholy. There was only time for a quick wash and a hurried breakfast in the refectory, before my day's work began. Oroher and I had just started our rounds when a mason from one of the countless building sites around the city was brought in. He had fallen from a scaffold and his back and legs were heavily bruised, but the worst injury was his left wrist. It was broken in several places, and some of the bones were utterly smashed.

"If we only splint the wrist, it will heal stiff, and he will lose the use of it. I was told he has a wife and three daughters," said Oroher.

"What else can you do?" I asked. Splintered bone ends protruded from the wound, and I was grateful that the man lay in a deep poppy slumber. This was one patient I could empathize with completely; I knew what it was to have a break like that.

"You have clever, steady hands, Noerwen. If we work together, I think we can save most of the flexibility of his wrist."

I looked doubtfully at the warden.

"Oroher, I don't know. It's like a puzzle, and I'm not sure how it will come out." Desperately I tried to remember the exact structure of the human wrist. Oroher interpreted my frown correctly; he stepped over to a cupboard set into the wall and unlocked it with a little brass key. He brought out a sheet of parchment and unrolled it with care, and to my surprise I saw a drawing of an arm with all the bones clearly delineated, even the small wrist and finger bones. As far as I could judge it was anatomically correct in every respect.

"Wonderful!" I breathed. "Who made this for you?"

"Ah, well, Mardil's passion is herbs, but mine is bones." He smiled. "Perhaps this can serve as our guide."

And so we struggled to rearrange the smashed wrist of the mason as carefully as we could manage. The forenoon passed and still we sat under the bright skylight in the surgery ceiling, leaning over the injured arm. There was a sudden movement at the door, and without looking up aI heard someone stepping over to the examining table, and Ioreth's soft voice whispering in Oroher's ear.

"Noerwen, try to stretch the joint a little before you bandage it," he said. "I will be back in a moment."

From the corner of my eye I saw him pass through the doorway. I stretched the joint carefully and reached for one of the clean bandage rolls on the tray beside me. At that exact moment the drugged mason moaned and jerked his arm, and I swore under my breath.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance?" I looked up to see an unknown man close beside me, and I wondered how he had come in without my hearing him. He was tall and muscular with a good face, strong and intelligent, and his shoulder-length hair was dark but streaked with grey. In spite of that he did not seem old; there was a sense of vitality about him, and a quirk to his lips that hinted at a sense of humor.

"Perhaps," I said. "He must lie still enough for me to put on the bandage. Can you manage that? But be careful not to touch the wound; your hands are not clean."

He kept a straight face, but a smile appeared in the deep grey eyes.

"I will try my best." He moved to the other end of the table and laid his hand on the forehead of the unconscious man. The mason had been shifting about and wincing in evident discomfort, but at the stranger's touch he sighed deeply and lay still.

"Very good!" I said in amazement. I reached again for the bandage material and worked as quickly as I could to bind up the broken wrist in a secure bandage, clean and white. At last I straightened up and stretched. My back hurt from bending over the patient hour after hour, and I gave an involuntary moan.

"May I" The stranger stepped behind me and, without waiting for an answer, he laid both hands on my shoulders, sliding them down my spine to my waist with strong pressure. The result was astonishing - warmth spread through the cramped muscles and the dull pain eased and vanished. The man backed away and I turned to look at him.

His doublet was simply cut, but its velvet was rich, the folds luxurious. A kind of brooch was pinned to his shoulder, an eagle with outspread wings, holding a gem of golden green in its claws. Sunlight flooded into the room through the skylight overhead, and the sunbeams seemed gathered into the jewel, making it glow... _like the sun shining through the leaves of spring. (2)_  
I looked up to meet the man's eyes, and then I bowed deeply.

"King Elessar," I said. "Forgive me, that I did not recognize you earlier."

He smiled, tilting his head quizzically. "But how would you know me?" he asked. "We have not met before this, have we?"

"Well, I have seen you before." I began washing the blood from my hands. "On your wedding day... but I was far in the back of the crowd, and you looked hardly bigger than my thumb."

"And in black mail and a winged crown," he added, his mouth curling in humorous resignation. "I probably wouldn't have recognized myself."

I dried my hands and regarded him thoughtfully. All at once I could picture him as a man in worn leather and soft boots, sitting by the campfire at dusk, the dancing flames mirrored in his eyes. Almost I could smell the tobacco in his pipe, and I wondered if he looked back on those days with longing... at least some of the time.

"I am sure a high calling like yours takes some getting used to. Sometimes it must seem to like a strange new world," I said gently. I held the wrist of the unconscious mason in my hand, counting the pulse, and when I looked again at Aragorn his expression was impassive.

"You are speaking out of your own experience, are you not, Noerwen?"

He leaned forward and his eyes held mine; I could not have looked away even if I had wished to. Abruptly the realization came to me, how much power was in this man.

I answered with an effort. "Yes. And you know that, obviously."

He nodded. "Indeed. I know because Gandalf spoke to me of you."

"He did? _Oh."_

"I assume you agree that it is helpful for a king to know what is going on in his city. Especially if he has such an..._unusual_ guest." His voice was gentle.

I took a deep breath. "Who else knows?"

"I fear that would be me, child."

I startled and whirled around. Oroher had come in and stood gazing at me with a mixture of guilt and curiousity. I stared back.

"How long have you known?"

"Only since yesterday. Gandalf spoke to me, as well as to the king."

„For heaven's sake... and what happens next? A public placard on all the great places of Minas Tirith? Fanfares and heralds?"

The king laughed, but his eyes were still serious. "Gandalf told Oroher at my request. If you suddenly vanish away, it is better if we keep confusion to a minimum."

"Very prudent of you," I said dryly.

The smile moved from his mouth up to his eyes. "Oh, I confess to being curious, damsel! As soon as we return from King Theoden's funeral and have leisure for long conversation, I want to hear about this strange world you come from. And I suspect that Oroher is burning to hear all you can tell him of the wonderful methods of healing in use there."

I bowed. "I am no longer certain which of us can learn more from the other... he or me."

"I have no doubt the discussion will be of great interest," said the king. "But now I must leave you; several dozen counselors are waiting to shower me with questions... and I am quite sure the gentlemen could answer at least half of them without my assistance."

He sighed and went toward the door, then suddenly turned to look at me once more.

"Ah, yes - I have no secrets from my queen. She wishes to meet you, and she is expecting you two hours from now in her chamber."

He was hardly out the door before Ioreth came whirling in, her eyes shining, and caught me in a hug.

"My goodness, dearie!" she exclaimed, breathless with excitement. "An audience with the Queen... what an incredible honor!"

I returned the embrace, then gently pushed her away.

"Very true, Ioreth." I gazed down on my robe and blood-stained apron. "But you will have to find proper clothes for me to wear. I can hardly go looking like this!"

I took a hasty bath, and within the hour Ioreth managed to find an appropriate gown for me. Her niece, Aragwen, whose sandals I had worn until the battle on Pelennor Field, took charge of my hair, plaiting it into thick braids and winding them into a coronet about my head, pinning them in place with a handful of pins from the pouch at her belt. The gown was deep green, with a round neckline and wide trumpet sleeves, its hem and waist embroidered in silver thread with graceful vines and leaves intertwined. It was a surprisingly good fit, and so were the silken shoes they had found for me. When I was all ready, both women circled around me, examining every detail of my appearance.

"Beautiful!" Ioreth said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, "But something is still missing..."

"A pity you don't own any jewelry... a silver chain, perhaps, or earrings," Aragwen mused.

"But I do have something."

I went to the small commode next to my bed and opened the top drawer. The little velvet bag lay on top of a pile of white under-dresses. I undid the drawstring and let the ring slide out into my hand, heavy and cool; then I slid it onto my third finger and turned around, holding out my hand for them to see.

Ioreth's eyes grew big. "Oh, my dear child, but this is _marvellous!" _She took my hand and held it up, turning it from side to side with a child's delight to watch the changing highlights in the shining gem. Then she met my eyes, and a smile spread across her face. "Damrod?"

I nodded, blushing.

She embraced me with some caution, to save the dress and avoid mussing my hair.

"I am so glad for you! When did he give it to you? Will you be going to Ithilien to live? How soon? Oh, how I will miss you... but you will surely be very happy, now that things over there are better, and you will come to visit us, surely. And if there are children..."

I could not hold back my laughter. "Slowly, slowly!" I said. "I am still here, and the only place I am going right now is to the Queen's chambers."

The door opened and Oroher peeked in.

"Noerwen? There is a court lady outside who wants to take you with her. You... _good gracious!_" He stared at me in amazement and then he did something I would never in my life have expected from the dignified Warden of the Houses of Healing: he whistled appreciatively through his teeth

I grinned and made him a low bow, then I gathered up my rustling skirts and sailed out of the room with my head high.

vvvvv

The court lady who had come to escort me was in no way arrogant, but rather visibly excited about her new status as a member of Arwen's court, and very friendly. She complimented my dress and led me a short distance up the winding road to a gate guarded by two men in black livery. Beyond the gate was a vast, paved courtyard, in the middle of which stood a fountain surrounded by a broad marble bench, strewn with bright-colored cushions. Beside the fountain was a very young tree with bark as white as snow.

My companion noticed me looking at it and beamed with pride.

"Yes, damsel," she said, "this is a sapling of the Eldest Tree. Our King dug it out of the mountain with his own hands, and planted it here, and Lord Gandalf helped him. And nearly every day our Queen comes here to sit for a time and sing in the Elvish tongue. Some say the tree will grow better because of the music."

She guided me across the courtyard, past more guards and into the palace. I followed her through one glorious hall after another until we came to a broad flight of stairs that curved upward to the floor above. I would have liked to have more time to look around; it was like walking through the grandest of museums. The walls were covered with tapestries of shimmering silk, obviously precious heirlooms, and tall windows of colored glass let in a dazzle of sunbeams, staining the white marble steps every color of the rainbow.

Finally we came to a richly carved oaken door, and a man in livery who stood there swung it open, bowing deeply. I stepped in, hearing the court lady announcing my name, and my most vivid memory of the moment is the two dozen hair pins holding my braids in place, which seemed all to dig into my scalp at the exact same time. The multi-layered skirts of my court dress, so voluminous after my light, loose robe, threatened to entangle themselves around my knees, and I kicked at them impatiently, trying to be discreet about it.

At that moment I would willingly have foregone the great honor of meeting the Queen, and found myself back in a peaceful sickroom, splinting a broken leg or sewing up a wound.

"Welcome, Noerwen."

The Queen of Gondor came forward to meet me, and whatever courteous greeting I had ready died on my lips.

I had never been able to imagine what Elrond's daughter looked like; the description given by the _Pengolodh_ had not been enough for me to get a clear mental picture of her. White skin, black hair and grey eyes... he might have been describing Snow White or some other colorless fairytale princess. But now _Undómiel,_ the Evening Star of the Elves, stood alive before me, and she took my breath away.

White skin indeed, but not colorless - it was like alabaster, translucent and lit from within. Her eyes were the grey of the ocean after a storm, friendly and perhaps a little curious, but deep with suffering endured and overcome, and glowing with life and new joy. And the black hair was a cloak of midnight falling in silken waves over her shoulders and down her back.

Her gown was long and loose-fitting, seeming to be fashioned of many thin veils of silk from palest moonlight to darkest anthracite. Her arms and hands were bare and unadorned, her only jewel a teardrop pearl that hung from a delicate silver thread across her high forehead. Such was her loveliness that the most elaborate gown, the most precious jewelry, could have added nothing to her beauty, for you cannot improve upon perfection. Beside her I felt myself garishly overdressed.

"Welcome to Gondor. Although as I think about it, in truth you have been here longer than I have." Her voice was musical, making the most mundane words almost like a song, and her laughter washed over me like sunshine, warm and enlivening, so that I lost enough of my frozen awe to at least bow properly to her.

„Sit down." she went on and guided me over to a little table with inlays made of ivory and gold, standing near the window. It was set with small plates and precious crystal glasses, and on a tray stood a lusciously filled bowl with fruits and a plate with fine cakes. „The Ringbearer told me you don't eat enough."

I stared at her with astonishment and hesitatingly sat down on an elegant, richly stuffed chair. When I leaned back one of my hair pins painfully pierced the skin of my skull and I winced fiercely.

"Are you in pain?" The queen looked worried. "I was told that you were wounded during the battle for Minas Tirith."

"No, Your Majesty, that is long healed," I said. "It is only that some friendly souls pinned up my hair to make me presentable to come to you, and these hairpins are killing me."

I clapped my hand across my mouth - _what a thing to say to the Queen? Whatever would she think of me!_

But Arwen laughed merrily and shook her head, making her dark hair fly about her face.

"Take them out, dear child," she said. "And then drink a glass of wine and eat one of those almond cakes, so I can tell Frodo tomorrow that you liked them."

I plucked pin by pin out of the ornate hairdo, thinking as I did so of the little picnic with Frodo in the garden of the Houses of Healing. I recalled his quiet face, his fear and pain hidden so skillfully behind a mask of calm, and his soft voice that betrayed nothing of his agony at not being able to find his home.

I wondered how much I should say, and took refuge in pouring wine from a jar that stood at hand in a bed of crushed ice. Obediently I took up one of the cakes. "We ate together and told each other our dreams," I said at last. "He longed to go home and I... I was afraid I might have to go."

"Indeed?" The Queen leaned forward.

"Aragorn told me you come from the same world as the _Pengolodh._ I knew him, you see. He came regularly to Rivendell for a long time, and spent whole days in my father's library." She smiled. "He knew my father didn't like it, when he smoked the hobbits' weed there among the books and parchments, so he would go out on one of the terraces in the evening and smoke. I remember him pacing up and down quoting verses in _Quenya_ and _Sindarin,_ with a spicy-scented cloud of blue smoke about his head and the sound of the waterfalls mingling with his voice."

"He knew Bilbo, didn't he?"

"Oh, yes - and he knew him already before he even came to Rivendell. He had visited him often in the Shire. But I have not seen him now in ten years or more."

"He will come to Minas Tirith," I said. "Perhaps not yet, but he will come. He has written the whole story of the Ring War in a book, and in my world many thousands of people have read it. He will have to come here again, for someone to tell it to him."

I had succeeded in getting rid of the last hairpin, and let my hair fall over my shoulders with a sigh of relief before I took a sip of wine. The flavor was sweeter and fruitier than the wine I had shared with Frodo; it had a deep golden color and a rich aroma, like a heavy muscatel.

"You know, I am racking my brain to think why I was sent here," I said with a sigh. "The i Pengolodh /i goes in and out of this world as effortlessly as a child at play. Perhaps he is the chronicleer of Middle Earth. But what am I?"

The Queen looked at me attentively. "You have earned the greatest respect for your service in the Houses of Healing. Gandalf tells me that you lifted his spirits more than once when he was near to losing his courage. Do you not think that these things have merit?"

"I don't know." I avoided her gaze, sipping my wine. "I knew that the old Steward would run mad and burn himself alive, and try to burn his son as well, but I did nothing to prevent it. And the Ringbearer..."

I fell silent, but Arwen leaned forward, looking at me sharply, her face tense. For a moment I thought I had a clear image of what her father looked like.

"What is wrong with the Ringbearer?"

I took a deep breath. "It was a good idea, giving him your jewel. Then he at least has a way of escape, when he cannot bear his memories any longer." My voice broke and to my embarrassment, I burst into a flood of tears.

"Child..._child_..." The grey gown rustled softly and suddenly the lady wife of the High King of Gondor was standing beside my chair. Her soft, cool hand cupped my cheek, and with her other hand she stroked my hair, her voice a soothing, wordless murmur in my ears.

"I'm sorry..." Unsuccessfully I tried to check my tears. "You have to understand... I knew Frodo Baggins only as a character in a book, and even then he was so very precious to me... But now I have met him, now I know him as a real, living person, and..." I buried my face in the silken napkin she handed me.

"Frodo's fate does not lie in your hands," Arwen said quietly. "You are not responsible for his peace of mind."

"That is not my only worry." I wiped my eyes. "There is a man... he is from this world, not from my own. I told him the truth, and for a while he was very angry with me. But he forgave me, and I love him, and he gave me a ring and he is crazy enough to even want me for his wife... and all the while I don't even know if I will be allowed to stay!" I pressed my hand against my mouth, shaking my head helplessly.

"Is that the ring on your finger?" The Queen's voice was gentle. "May I have a closer look?"

I drew it off my finger and laid it in her hand. She turned it from side to side, letting it catch the light, and the green gem shone darkly against her skin, the metal of the setting glittered like white fire.

"This is wonderful craftsmanship," she said, "and a marvelous gem. Look, it is completely smooth on top, but the bottom side is cut with small star-shaped facets. It makes the light dance inside the stone like sunbeams glancing off water. Do you know where it comes from?"

"I was told it is Dwarvish work," I replied.

"That explains the material," she said. "Did someone else wear the ring already, before you had it?"

"Yes, his mother and his grandmother."

"So it must be nearly a hundred years old. Do you see that the ring has no scratches, no signs of wear?" The Queen let one slender white finger slide along the circlet. "That would hardly be possible if it was made of ordinary silver. This is _mithril,_ child."

I stared at it wide-eyed, and Arwen smiled as she took my hand and gently slid the ring back on my finger.

"For a man to give you such a jewel, he must be very sure of you, and of himself. You have given, and received, so much love since you came here, Noerwen. Do not lose heart now." Her smile deepened. "And wherever you may live in the future - in Ithilien, here in Minas Tirith, or in your own world - you will always be welcome at this court."

vvvvv

Ioreth was waiting for me when I returned to the Houses of Healing just before sundown. In my room, she helped me to unfasten the tight bodice of the green dress and hung it up, while I slipped with relief back into my robe and washed my face.

After a while, she stopped showering me with questions about the audience and pressed me down on a chair, taking up a brush and running it through my hair with long, smooth strokes.

"Ioreth?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Don't you think it is time to reconcile with Mardil?"

The brush stopped moving.

"Why should I?" Her voice was tense.

"Because you loved him once... and he loved you." I turned to look into the friendly old face with the dark, birdlike eyes, so familiar to me after my months in this city.

"It makes me sad, the way you treat him. Mardil is a wonderful, wise old man, and he is like a grandfather to me. Does it really matter that he forgets things from time to time? You should be enjoying your age together, but instead he tries to escape from your sharp tongue."

"Child, it is more than forty years ago..." she murmured uneasily.

"Exactly." I took the brush from her hand. "And the embarrassment he inflicted on you, out of pure absent-mindedness, you know, and not with any bad purpose - that is forty years ago as well. Therefore it is time to forgive him."

I hugged her, smelling her comforting scent of dried herbs and freshly ironed linen - for the rest of my life I would connect that aroma with the Houses of Healing, and with Ioreth.

"I want my best friends to get along with each other," I whispered in her ear, and then I kissed her on the cheek.

vvvvv

I had barely slept the night before, and the day had been exhausting enough; during dinner in the refectory my eyes closed involuntarily more than once. I retired to my room and went to bed before it got really dark, and slipped into a dream.

___I was wandering across a summer meadow. The grass was soft under my bare feet and isolated trees scattered here and there across the landscape cast moving shadows on the land. As I walked, there were more and more trees, and the sunlight turned from golden to a shimmering green under the branches. And then the trees opened up again onto a wide clearing, and at its far end was a row of willows. Beyond them I could hear the cool rushing waters of a stream._

_____To one side of the clearing there was a house. The ground floor was built of natural stone, and above that was an upper level with many deep dormers, built of oak timbers which had taken a warm dark patina of age. The sun slanted through the trees, and the narrow shingles of the roof shimmered like silver._

_I knew whose house this was, and I knew he was waiting here for me. Only another moment, and I would see him._

_"Damrod?"_

_I quickened my pace and came closer to the house, and suddenly the bright sunlight dimmed, becoming a misty grey and then, without transition, turning black as midnight. I stumbled, hesitated, and stood still._

_Gradually my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I looked up to see the familiar tengwar fittings and massive, shining metal. For the second time I stood before the gate... and once again on the wrong side._

I opened my eyes.

The room was dark and very quiet. My panting breaths seemed loud in the silence, and I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, only slowly returning to its normal rhythm. I got up and went over to the window, pushing the casements open. Cool air streamed in, and I looked out at a sky that displayed the gentle, rosy reflection of approaching sunrise.

I had slept for nearly eight hours before the dream startled me awake, and I had no inclination to go back to bed. I slipped my robe on over my nightshirt and wrapped myself up in a shawl Ioreth had lent me two days before and I had forgotten to return.

The gardens lay silent in the dim light. The grass was wet with dew under my bare feet as I made my way to the wall, and the light grew stronger as the sky brightened.

I reached my favorite place by the wall and sat down under the huge chestnut tree. Somewhere a cock was crowing, his voice a shrill fanfare, calling for the day. In a few hours a great company would march out through the gates: Aragorn and his Queen, Faramir and Eowyn, who would announce their engagement in Edoras, and Theoden, being carried to his final rest. Also four hobbits, going home.

I leaned back against the tree trunk. I still hadn't met Sam, I realized, nor Galadriel and Celeborn, nor Legolas and Gimli. Well, probably many of the citizens of Minas Tirith would be at the gate to bid farewell to their king, so why not me? I would wash quickly and dress for the occasion - the green gown was still hanging on the door of my room - and I would go down to say goodbye. I thought of Merry and his encouraging humor, of Pippin who had regained his joy at his cousin's side. And I remembered Frodo, the sadness in his face...

_I am longing for old familiar paths, for the smell of the books in my study and the clattering of Sam's clipers in the garden... the sound of rain on the grassy roof, and the scent of the honeysuckle that hangs down over my bedroom window. I want to go home._ I thought. _I don't long for home, or at least not for the place where I was born. I yearn to find that house by the river, and the man I know is there, preparing for my arrival. I want to be with Damrod_.

The dew was soaking into my robe, making me feel damp and chilled. I got up and brushed off bits of grass and bark; then I started back toward the house. Perhaps I could find water enough for a hot bath.

Not me,

Suddenly the earth seemed to shift, throwing me to the ground. I felt the gravel of the path grinding painfully into my palms and my knees, and the garden around me vanished behind a dense and soundless white. I raised my head, confused and terrified. _What was happening to me?  
_  
And then I understood, and I heard myself screaming, my voice sounding shrill and far away. _No, oh no! This can't happen, not now. Not now!_

I clawed frantically at the ground, trying to hold on to my world, but I had no control. I was tossed like a stick going over a cataract, right out of the fragile frame of my body and into blind nothing. But even there I was not permitted to remain, though I longed for it with all the desperation of my last conscious thought. Forgetfulness closed around me, and a name echoed through my mind, echoing in the void into which I had fallen.

_Damrod! Oh my God_, Damrod.

vvvvv

_I can barely see at all. A thick mist seems to whirl around me, and there's a strange, droning sound in my ears. I recognize that my feet are bearing me forward, my steps stumbling and uncertain, but I don't know where I'm going. My knees feel as if they might buckle beneath me, and I reach out with both hands, searching desperately for something to hold on to. Finally I stop, shivering with fear, my breath coming in painful gasps._

_I'm trembling horribly. A piercing wind cuts through my pullover, as chilling as if someone had poured a stream of icy water over me._

_It is pitch dark, and cold._ So cold.

vvvvv

_(1) The quote in italics is taken from "Farewell to Lórien" in FOTR. The brooch is a kind of wedding gift, previously given to Aragorn by Galadriel._

(2) The "Tale of the years" in the LOTR-appendix tells of the evacuation of Ithilien and gives the date of 2954. I took the freedom to place it 50 years later (3004) to make Damrod's tragical first love possible


	13. Pilgrimage

**13. Pilgrimage**

I was released from the sanatorium at the beginning of March - not "cured," but "stable". I would have to be content with that.  
  
The taxi driver started the car, and I leaned back with a deep sigh. Finally I did not have to fool anyone, did not have to play any role. As miserable as I still felt, this at least was a relief.  
  
We were driving down a country road bordered on both sides with trees covered in white blossoms. Spring... It had been winter when I found myself in the park, stumbling along blindly by the pond. Nearly two months ago_.Two months and nearly a lifetime._

A week before I left the sanatorium I had telephoned to Mrs. Meinhardt. Ever since my father's death she had come once a week to clean house for me, and now I made a heroic effort to explain what had happened to me. She listened to my stammered explanation - false, of course - and after clucking sympathetically a few times, promised to go to the house and get it spruced up for me.  
  
The taxi dropped me off by the garden gate. I paid the driver and went in, up the paved walk to the door. When I unlocked it and pushed it open, the warm, clean scent of orange oil furniture polish filled my nostrils: everything was tidy and sparkling clean. The kitchen floor was waxed to a high shine and the refrigerator was stocked with butter and cheese and cold meat. _There must have been spoiled food in it, after more than four months, _I thought, but Mrs. Meinhardt had been very thorough, and there was no lingering odor, only fresh cleanliness. There was a loaf of new bread, and the clay bowl my mother had brought back from a long-ago holiday in Italy sat on the kitchen table, filled with Granny Smith apples.  
  
_A clay bowl of June apples, in another kitchen. Light streaming in through big windows onto a well-scrubbed wooden table. A white-bearded wizard sitting across from me.  
  
"This is not your home, child. If you continue to ignore that fact, you are going to rip yourself to pieces."_

I winced and stared blindly at the bowl of fruit. Then I saw the note lying on the table, Mrs. Meinhardt's big, round writing.  
  
_"Dear Miss Steinenberg! I washed the curtains and cleaned everything. If I hear nothing from you, I'll be here next Friday, as usual."_

I looked at the wall calendar, decorated with Frisian houses. I had bought one like it every year ever since I went to visit my grandmother for the first time. Today was Monday. The week stretched long and empty before me. Other than my charwoman, no one knew I was back.  
  
_Faith._

I turned around and went across the hall into the study. The top of my desk was perfectly clean, like the rest of the room, and on the leather desk pad I had inherited from my father stood the closed laptop.  
  
I opened it and switched it on. The screen brightened and I sat down, hitting the keys that would take me online. I would send her an e-mail. I would tell her I was back, and a report would follow very soon, explaining my long silence. But when I saw the hundreds of messages that filled my mailbox nearly to the point of collapse, I lost my courage. I should read them, every one of them, and send some response, but I simply couldn't.  
  
I switched off the laptop. For a moment I sat without moving; then I got up and left the room. The small travel bag a friendly nurse at the samatarium had bought for me still stood by the front door: clothes the nurse had organized for me, some cosmetics, my secret diary, and the things from that fateful evening. I carried the bag upstairs.  
  
My bed was freshly made, spread with my grandmother's patchwork coverlet, and a cool breeze came in through the open window and billowed the curtains. I set down the bag and opened the zipper.  
  
On top lay the bright pullover I had worn when I went out for the walk that led me to Middle Earth. I pulled it out and folded it properly, put it in the closet. Heaven knew when I would ever wear it again. The very sight of it made my stomach contract into a painful knot.  
  
Next came underwear and a couple of blouses, three pairs of jeans and a pair of slippers I had used in the sanatorium. When I picked them up, a small, neatly folded paper bag slipped out of one of them. When I opened the bag, the chain with my Celtic cross fell onto the coverlet. They had removed my jewelry when I arrived at the hospital; I had forgotten all about it. My big silver Creole earrings were there too - my mind wandered to my father, who in a rare moment of dry humor had called them _gipsy treasure._ One of them rolled away and fell behind the bed, and I crawled under to get it. When I had retrieved it and went to throw away the paper bag, I noticed that there was still something inside. I shook the bag, and something heavy and shining fell into my open palm.  
  
I stared in disbelief, the breath catching in my throat. I felt as if something heavy had fallen on my chest.  
  
It was the mithril ring_. Damrod's ring_.  
  
I didn't understand. Every stitch of clothing I had worn in Middle Earth had remained there - but the ring was here._Why? How?_  
  
_For years I could not believe that I would ever have a wife to wear it, and I want to see it on your hand._

The memory of his voice was like a blow in the stomach. Did he know already? And when did he find out? When the house was ready, that he had been preparing for me? When he came to Minas Tirith, to take me home?

_Damrod_.

I let myself sink down on the bed, the ring pressed against my heart. After a while I fell asleep, for a few, precious hours actually home again.  
  
When I awakened, in the little moment between dream and reality my eyes searched instinctively for the grey stone walls, the pointed window of my room in the Houses of Healing. But all I saw was the familiar lilac-colored wall that I had decorated with a painted tendril of flowering vetch a few years back, and the room did not smell of wood smoke and herbs, but rather of the starch Mrs. Meinhardt had used on my curtains.  
  
I still held the ring in my hand. I unfolded my fingers and gazed into the deep, quiet green of the gem, and it was only when it blurred before my eyes that I realized I was crying.

vvvvv

In the following weeks I tried to take up the threads of my old life. I didn't go back to work at the newspaper right away. My editor had been very kind, relieved to see me back and very understanding of my need of time for convalesence. I began transferring the notes I had made in the sanatorium onto my computer.  
  
It was a laborious undertaking. In some places I couldn't read my own, cramped handwriting, but worse than that was the torment of waking the memories.. the voices, the words, each little incident. Day after day I forced myself to the task, but sometimes I could manage no more than two short paragraphs before the world I had lost was so clear and vivid before my eyes that I could not bear it. Other days I transcribed a page or two, and then was so exhausted that I lay down and slept away the afternoon.  
  
I tried sometimes to distract myself, but without success. I found it hard to watch TV programs; the flood of images, the boisterous commercials, were overwhelming, an attack on my senses. Political events, news of wars and disasters in various places, rushed past me in a disturbing blur. I turned from TV to radio, but it wasn't much better. The constant, false cheer of the announcers' voices tore fiercely at my nerves, and before long I stopped switching on either the TV or the radio. For the first time in my life even my beloved classical CDs brought me no comfort: the first_ fortissimo_ of the orchestra made me cringe.  
  
And I thought about Damrod. He filled my mind nearly every waking moment. I still remember one of my rare trips to the next town, about two weeks after I got back. It was a Saturday and the streets were full of people. I was on my way home, exhausted and numbed by the unaccustomed scrimmage and the racket of noise, when a man jostled me. He stopped and begged my pardon, and I caught a glimpse of grey eyes, a well-shaped face and dark hair. He smiled, then he turned around and walked away, and I stood stock-still on the busy sidewalk with my heart drumming in my chest.  
  
That night I began to dream. I dreamt of encounters with Damrod, of sunny afternoons spent with him, of earnest conversations. I dreamt that he held me in his arms and kissed me, and finally that we made love - and from those dreams I woke sobbing in an empty bed in a different world, lying awake for the rest of the night, staring into emptiness and struggling against a pain that hollowed me out and consumed me till I felt like an empty shell.  
  
In the daytime I tried to continue writing down the story for Faith, diving again and again into my memories. It was an endless cycle of suffering, and no escape. I slept less and less and my writing slowed almost to a standstill; some days I spent sitting in front my shining screen without typing a single world, the cursor blinking before my eyes.._.on... off...on...off...on... off..._

I got in the habit of going for a long walk on Friday, in order to avoid Mrs. Meinhardt. I was afraid of her worried questions if she saw my pale face, the shadows under my eyes, and the way my narrow summer dress hung on my skinny body like a potato sack.  
  
July came, and Mrs. Meinhardt bid farewell with one of her properly written letters before she left for her annual family holiday near the North Sea. I hardly noticed; my days had lost their shape, melting into a vague sequence of light and darkness. The dreams had become unbearable, and now I did not dream only of Damrod. Once again I was reliving the evening after the battle of Pelennor Fields, the attack - but now when I woke from the nightmare there was no one there to hold me, no loving voice or warm body to comfort me and shield me against the memory. I was afraid to go to sleep, and yet afaid to wake up and go back to the computer, to try and tell my story.  
  
I was afraid to live anymore.  
  
One evening I came to myself in my study, with no idea how I had spent the day. The house was dark and stifling hot. The window shades were all pulled down, and on the desk in front of me a candle was burning. There was a bottle of wine, open, and a filled glass. And beside the glass were two vials of sleeping pills.  
  
I stared at the macabre still life and felt naked horror breaking through the fog that filled my mind. I heard a stifled whimper, then realized in fear that it was my own voice. I jumped up, shuddering, and the chair toppled over behind me. The candle flickered and went out.  
  
I stumbled down the stairs and left the house, banging the door behind me. The sky was hung with thick clouds, and as I opened the garden gate and stepped out onto the street, a bolt of lightning forked out of the blackness, followed by the first heavy drops drumming on the heated asphalt.  
  
I glanced back with a shudder at the empty house, the dark windows shiny with rain. Then I turned and ran.  
  
vvvvv

I ran through silent streets in between dim circles of light from the streetlights. Without thinking where I was going, I turned into a narrow passage between high hedges. It opened into a small, enclosed area and I stopped, looking around.  
  
A church stood before me, neither big nor impressive, but it was illuminated from within, and the glow of quadratic windows of colored glass was reflected in the puddles on the ground. The rain was soaking through my thin summer dress, trickling down my back, and my sandals squeaked with wetness. I went to the church door and tried it. It wasn't locked and I stepped inside, noticing from the corner of my eye a simple bronze plate with the inscription _St. Agnes._

I shut the door softly behind me, and at once I was surrounded by silence. There was a faint smell of incense, lingering from the last Mass, and mixed with the scent of warm wax; in a side chapel a statue of some saint stood looking down on a few dozen lighted candles. On each side of the nave were benches of dark wood, and in the front the red glow of the Eternal Light.I went over to the statue; it was Mary with the baby Jesus. She must have been carved and painted sometime during the Baroque era; she had a friendly face with rosy cheeks, and the Child in her arms was smiling.  
  
I sank down on one of the benches, closing my eyes. The horror I had felt when I saw the wine and the pills washed over me again: _my God I nearly killed myself!_

"I can't stand any more of this," I whispered. "I'm finished; I can't bear it anymore. If this was a game, it was a cruel one, and I am not a toy. How could You do this to me?"  
  
My voice broke and I fell silent. The Madonna gazed down on me patiently, and drops of moisture ran down my face. I wasn't sure if they were tears or rainwater from my soaked hair.  
  
The church door opened again behind me. I turned to look, and saw a man walking without haste down the main aisle. He stopped before the main altar to genuflect and cross himself, before he moved to sit down on the first bench in front. _A priest._ I sat utterly still, hardly daring to breathe; I didn't want to attract his attention. All I could see of him from where I sat was a broad back and short hair, tinged with grey.  
  
Slowly I became aware how wet I really was. My dress was soaked through, clinging to my body, and my hair hung in thick, dripping strands down my back. I began to shiver uncontrollably, cold, and also the shock that still had me in its grip. Perhaps I could slip out quietly. I shrank from returning to my empty house_ (back to those bottles of pills)_ but I couldn't think of anything else to do.  
  
I slid off the bench, but I had gone no more than a few meters toward the door when I sneezed. It burst from me like an explosion into the deep silence, and to my dismay the man jumped up hastily and turned to me.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
He hurried toward me. He was a big man, more than a head taller than I was, and no longer young. He looked like a sturdy countryman, grey green eyes regarding me from under bushy eyebrows, his chin covered by a short beard, neatly trimmed  
  
"I had no idea I was not alone," he said. His voice was warm and deep, with a singing echo that made me think of a cello, and he had a noticeable Franconian accent, all soft g's and rolling r's. Then his brow furrowed. "But my dear girl, you're as wet as a drowned cat!"  
  
I wrapped my arms around myself and tried not to let my teeth chatter. "A are you the priest here?"  
  
"Not really." He had a friendly smile. "I'm filling in for him this week; he's away on holiday. I am Brother Anselm, and I am a Franciscan friar."  
  
Now that I looked more closely at him, I noticed the dark brown robe with its belt of knotted rope.  
  
"I don't wish to intrude," he interrupted my observation, "but you surely have some reason to be sitting in this drafty church, dripping wet as you are. Can I perhaps be of help?"  
  
_Hardly not unless he could break through the borders of another world and convince the lords – or the one Lord – of that world to let me in again._

"I don't think so," I said wearily. I could feel goosebumps running up my arms. "I should go home."  
  
"Are you sure, my dear?"  
  
I stared at him, undecided, and then I remembered those two vials of pills on the table in my living room and horror closed its fist once more around my heart.  
  
"No." His face blurred suddenly before my eyes and I began to sob, trying desperately to regain my composure, and then I sneezed again.  
  
"Oh, dear heaven!" A surprisingly strong hand gripped my shoulder. "You come with me, my dear, and I'll see if I can't find something dry for you to wear in Father Leonhard's house. And then I'll make you a cup of tea."  
  
vvvvv

Half an hour later I sat at the kitchen table in the rectory of St. Agnes Church, wrapped in an enormous bathrobe that nearly drowned me in its luxurious folds. Fragrant steam rose from a huge mug of honeyed tea before me.  
  
Brother Anselm bustled about, slicing dark bread and piling it with ham and cheese on a plate. He set it on the table, poured himself a cup of tea, and sat down across from me.

"Well," he said. "And now you should tell me what's wrong."  
  
I stared into my mug.  
  
"I don't know if I can," I said hoarsely. "You'll think I'm crazy."  
  
He leaned back in his chair, laughing softly.  
  
"Child," he said. "I believe in a man who made enough food for thousands of people from five loaves of bread and two fishes, who raised the dead and could walk on the water. Believe me, I am not easily surprised."  
  
I lifted my head.  
  
"Are you familiar with _The Lord of the Rings?"_

"Yes, I am," he said deliberately. "Published in 1955 by a totally unknown Oxford Professor, and now the bestselling book in the world, after the Bible. Great story. And the movie they made last year isn't bad, either."  
  
"I can't judge as to that," I replied. "I haven't seen it. But... please, you must promise me something."  
  
"What is that?"  
_  
That you don't cut me off. And that you do not leave before I have finished. Oh Damrod, my love...._

"That you will hear me out. That you will at least try to believe..." I could hear the trembling in my voice.  
  
"You have my word."  
  
And so once more I told the story of my odyssey. I began with the evening when I took my fateful walk, and followed the chronology of events as faithfully as possible. The fact that I had been trying for some months already, to write it all down for Faith, helped me to keep the events in order. I spoke of Minas Tirith, of the Houses of Healing, of Ioreth and Mardil. The images came back to me, colorful and full of life, and this time it was not torture but unbelievable relief, to give in to them. I could speak; I was _allowed_ to speak. I told him about the battle, about Gandalf's face as he leaned down to me from his saddle, about the dying warrior of Rohan. The words flowed out of my mouth, an irresistible stream, together with laughter and piercing joy, and not a few tears. And all the time he listened to me, his eyes on my face, attentive and thoughtful. From time to time he asked a question, when I paused, but he did not interrupt me.  
  
Finally I came to the day I was released from the sanatorium. Briefly I summed up the foggy weeks that followed, and then I fell silent, watching him as he poured more tea into my cup. I gulped it down without meeting his eyes.  
  
He was quiet for so long that I began to feel anxious.  
  
"Well?" I asked finally, with difficulty keeping my voice level. "Do you believe me?"  
  
He sighed.  
  
"I can see that _you_ believe it," he said. He frowned. "And I must admit that it would be a rather fantastic story to spin out of your imagination. But all the same..." He hesitated.  
  
"All the same, you would like to see some proof."  
  
"I'm not certain that I would like it, actually." His voice was rather brusque, and he closed his eyes, wiping his brow with a large handkerchief pulled out of the pocket of his habit. "Child, you are turning my conception of the universe upside down."  
  
For the first time in several weeks, I found myself smiling.  
  
"Does the idea of your Creator bringing more than one world into life disturb you?"  
  
He smiled back at me, rather unwillingly.  
  
"No, not really. But the idea is somewhat startling, you must admit. And yes, I think I really would like to see some proof. For you know, my dear, if you really did imagine all this..."  
  
He leaned forward, his eyes piercing under the bushy eyebrows.  
  
"In that case, it would be better if you told the kind people at the sanatorium the truth. For if this is not true, then you have a very serious problem, and you should go back there at once and get some real help."  
  
I pulled Damrod's ring from my finger.  
  
"Do you happen to know anyone who can appraise jewelry?"  
  
He took the ring from me, turning it in his hands in evident amazement.  
  
"As a matter of fact, I do," he said. "One of my confreres in the monastery was a jeweler before he found his vocation, and he is now an expert in the sacral jewelry of the medieval period. But I don't know what sort of proof his expertise could give us..."  
  
"Show him the ring, and ask him," I said. I took another sip of tea. "And you are wrong, Brother Anselm. Even if I can prove to you that I have really been in a place that really does exist, I still have a problem. For the man who gave me this ring is still there, and I am afraid I will never see him again."

vvvvv

Around midnight, Brother Anselm drove me home in the priest's rattling old _Volkswagen_. He came in the house with me, and without a word he slid both vials of sleeping pills into the pocket of his habit.  
  
"You don't need these anymore, my dear," he said quietly. "Tonight you will sleep in peace."  
  
And he was right. My eyes closed as soon as my head touched the pillow, and I slept without dreaming until a raucous ringing around eight o'clock in the morning nearly threw me out of bed.  
  
Bright sunshine peeked through the curtains. I rubbed my eyes as I tottered over to the intercom and took down the receiver, yawning.  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
"Brother Anselm." The cheery, energetic voice boomed from the loudspeaker. "I'm here to take you with me. We'll have breakfast, and I want to show you something."  
  
"Don't you ever sleep?"  
  
"Yes, of course I do!" he said with a chuckle. "But I have already celebrated early Mass at St. Agnes, and now I'm ready for something to eat. Come on, get dressed. I'll wait down here."  
  
I sighed and hung up. After a hurried shower, I slipped into a fresh summer dress and sandals. Ten minutes later I was locking the door behind me and sliding into the passenger seat of his car.  
  
He nodded approval. "Very quick," he said. "And you look pretty, besides."  
  
"Are monks allowed to notice that?"  
  
He laughed heartily.  
  
"My dear girl, our God has given us eyes, and we may use them the same way other men do!" He shot me a sidelong glance. "You are too thin. And it isn't good for you, locking yourself up in that big house all alone. You need something to do with your time, some useful work."  
  
I stared at him. "What kind of work?"  
  
"Didn't you tell me you studied some medicine? And during your time over... _there..._ you made yourself useful working with the wounded, didn't you?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"Excellent!" He twinkled at me, plainly well pleased with himself. "Our order runs a small hospice here. There is some financial support, but not very much. The rest comes from donations and legacies, and we always need volunteers. Roll up your sleeves, my girl, and get to work!"  
  
"What kind of hospice is it?" I asked.  
  
"It was established as a place for people to spend their last days in dignity. There is space for relatives to sleep there, if they wish, and we make it as easy and comfortable as possible for our patients to leave this world. And even if they have no family, still they are not alone at the end."  
  
"A place to die?" I shook my head. "I don't know if I want that... I don't even know if I _can_ do that!"  
  
"But you already did," he said calmly. "If your story is true, you have seen more of death than most people, and under far more dramatic circumstances than anything in our little hospice. People do not die of battle wounds in this place, child. They pass away in peace, and believe me that that is something completely different."  
  
"I don't know," I said again.  
  
"But I do." The gentle voice was suddenly very firm. "My dear, you have let all your mind revolve around yourself all these last weeks, and where did it get you? A table with a glass of wine and two vials of sleeping pills, and thank the grace of God, into my church! It is time that you opened your eyes to the suffering of other people, and in the hospice you will have the opportunity to do so."  
  
Again he twinkled at me, taking the sharpness out of his words.  
  
"And as a hospice volunteer you will need only a few classes, not full nurse's training. I'm sure you will do a wonderful job. Now you have a good look around, and then take a couple of days to think about it."  
  
"How long?" I asked. A sudden realization through me. "Until your confrere has had a closer look at my ring?"  
  
He raised his eyebrows, and I laughed.  
  
"Don't worry, I'm not insulted. Of course you want to be sure you are not letting a dangerous psycho loose on your patients."  
  
"You are not a psycho," he said earnestly. "To be honest, I am not certain what you are."  
  
The car rolled to a stop before a large white house. A daisy-strewn lawn stretched from the building down to the street. The engine went quiet, and I considered the monk who had probably saved my life the previous evening... simply by listening to me, without judgment.  
  
"Ah well," I said, "I'll have a look around, and I will think about it. You go ahead and send the ring to your confrere at the monastery. Once we have heard his opinion, you may still call the sanatorium if you think it's necessary."  
  
"Agreed," he said. "And now let's have some breakfast."

vvvvv

Nearly two weeks later I sat playing _Ludo_ with one of the patients in the small lounge of the hospice, looking out on the garden. Silja was eighteen, very pretty and cheerful, but thin to the point of fragility. She was in the final stages of cancer of the lymphatic gland. This was one of her good days, when she felt strong enough to leave her bed, and she was as happy about it as a child. She had just stopped me from rescuing my last figure, and she laughed aloud while I moaned theatrically, slapping my hand to my brow. Then I saw Brother Anselm; he stood in the doorway, his lips soundlessly forming the words _Would you please come?_

"You win, Silja," I said. "I never had a chance, the way you dice! But right now Brother Anselm wants me for something."  
  
"But we'll play another game, won't we?"  
  
"Of course." I got up, patting her bony shoulder under the thick bathrobe. "We certainly will -- so you can finally _butcher_ me, sweetheart!"  
  
She giggled delightedly, and I made a face at her as I went past.  
  
Brother Anselm guided me hastily into his small office, locking the door behind us.  
  
"What is it?" I asked in bewilderment.  
  
His face was expressionless. "Brother Valentin called," he said. I stared at him without understanding. "The jeweler," he said impatiently. "The expert."  
  
_The ring. Damrod's ring._

"Ah." My heart began pounding.. with fear? Expectation? _What if Arwen had been wrong?_ "And what does Brother Valentin say?"  
  
Brother Anselm took a deep breath, and now I noticed that he was strangely pale under his healthy tan.  
  
"He was unable to identify the metal," he said. "He says it has a density like multiply folded steel, but much harder, and he does not know a single metal on this earth with such an attribute. He could not scratch it, not even with a diamond. He believes the gem must be a tourmaline, given its weight and hardness, but he has never seen one this shade of green, nor one cut in this particular way. When he was talking about the setting, the craftmanship of the circlet, he was stammering with excitement."  
  
The monk's face was shiny with sweat; he wiped it with his handkerchief.  
  
"He says he has never in his career seen a piece of jewelry of such singular workmanship. He would die to keep it, to examine it much more thoroughly. And he emphatically wishes to talk with you."  
  
"No," I said decidedly. "No, to both."  
  
"What is it made of?" The stunned look in Brother Anselm's eyes would have been highly amusing, if sorrow had not been weighing so heavy on my heart.  
  
_"Mithril,"_ I said. "Truesilver. Damrod's grandfather had it made in a Dwarvish workshop, and the last woman who wore it was Damrod's mother. He gave it to me as a sign of our betrothal." I straightened my back. "Please. Tell Brother Valentin that I want it back. Quickly! As quickly as possible."  
  
"I would like to apologize," Brother Anselm said, still staring at me. "I knew you believed the story you told me was the truth. But all the same, to find that it really _is_ true..."  
  
His Adam's apple bobbled sharply as he swallowed. "I told you before, my dear. You have turned my worldview upside down. You have no idea how many things I want to ask you!" He smiled apologetically.  
  
"I will answer your questions if I can," I said. "Over a glass of wine, or even a whole bottle, if you like. But right now I must return to Silja, so she can beat me in another game of _Ludo_."  
  
I turned toward the door, but his voice stopped me.  
  
"Are you going to stay?"  
  
I looked at him over my shoulder and smiled. "Of course I'm going to stay. As if you didn't know that from the very beginning!"  
  
vvvvv

_Two years later._

"Why do you absolutely have to hang this painting in the entrance hall?"  
  
"Because I _like_ it." Brother Anselm's grin was mischievous. "Besides, it belongs there."  
  
I glared at him over the dark wooden frame.  
  
"Over my dead body!" I exclaimed. "I'll hang it in my living room; that's enough to satisfy my vanity. Someday, if I'm not here anymore, then you can do whatever you like with it."  
  
He laughed.  
  
"Agreed. Do we have many visiting families tomorrow?"  
  
"Three. I can give them the tour through the house, if you want."  
  
"That's fine. I have a meeting with Patrick Schweitzer's mother this evening. The boy is doing well enough, but she makes things unnecessarily difficult for him. Thank you for your support, Sabrina."  
  
I picked up the painting that had been the cause of the argument and carried it upstairs. Reaching the top floor, I unlocked the door and entered my apartment: three bright rooms with sloping ceilings, a narrow kitchen, and a small terrace, built into the roof, with space enough for a table and a few chairs, and a collection of flowering plants in pots. I leaned the painting against the wall and looked around, seeing my hideaway as if for the first time.  
  
When Brother Anselm had complained that I was turning his world upside down, two years previously in his office, he had undoubtedly been right. But the same applied to me.  
  
Once I had made up my mind to work in the hospice, I signed up for all the necessary classes, and was ready to begin my service four months later. I was the contact person for the families, besides helping in the office and caring for patients. The actual medical treatments were reserved for the three nurses and the doctor, but everything else was my job: mine, and that of the faithful dozen volunteers who worked in the hospice.  
  
It was in the nature of things that our guests did not leave us healed and well, but I learned to accept that. And Brother Anselm had been right: it was good for me to look beyond my own grief.  
  
He asked his many questions, and we spent many evenings with me describing my experiences, and him as enthusiastic audience. My story held endless fascination for him; he wanted to know everything, and it was a comfort to me to tell him. I finally managed to finish writing the report for Faith; when I sent it to her, I included a photograph of the scar on my arm and a picture of Damrod's ring, along with Brother Valentin's expert appraisal. And that confrere of Brother Anselm's badgered me so mercilessly that in the end I spend a week's holiday in Franconia, the first summer I was working in the hospice, to visit him at his monastery. The memory of his stunned expression when I told him what metal the ring was made of, still made me smile many months later.  
  
After she received my report, Faith came to Germany to see me. I suppose she was concerned about my sanity, but the fact that she would undertake such a journey moved me deeply, as proving how much she valued our friendship. She stayed two weeks, and in the end she was convinced, even as BRother Anselm and Brother Valentin had been. When she returned home, we began exchanging emails and letters again, and our friendship became even deeper and more open-hearted than it had been.  
  
In the spring of my second year there, the hospice came within a hair's breadth of being closed. The Franciscans only rented the building, and the owner decided to get rid of it. Unfortunately, the Order did not have the money to buy it. The local newspaper helped us mount a fundraising campaign, but it was not enough.  
  
I had been meeting once a year with my late father's lawyer, who administered my inheritance. At my 25th birthday I came into a large sum which my aunt had willed to me. Considering how much I owed to Brother Anselm and the hospice - perhaps my very life! - I decided to sell my parents' house. The young internist who had taken over my father's practice was delighted to buy it; he had married a couple of years before and hoped for a large family, so the big house was heaven-sent for him.  
  
So the Franciscans were able to buy the hospice building after all, and I spent an exhausting month sorting through all my family heirlooms. I kept very little: a few favorite pieces of furniture, my books, a portrait of my mother and some other, smaller, keepsakes. Everything else was sold along with the house.  
  
My lawyer wrote up the legal papers for the donation, and added a clause that guaranteed me right of abode in the small mansard beneath the roof of the hospice. Much of the revenue from the sale of my belongings, and part of the inheritance from my aunt, went to enlarging the mansard into a pleasant apartment. It took me several weeks to convince the lawyer that I really knew what I was doing; he had known me since I was a child.  
  
This was my life now, and it was good. There was plenty of work for me to do, and I found friends among the caregivers and nurses in the hospice. They were my support; the quiet atmosphere of the place, the unhurried rhythm, created an oasis in the hectic bustle of the town and gave me a certain peace. When the memories pressed to heavily on me, there was always a shoulder I could lean on... not least of all, Brother Anselm. Over the past two years he had come to be like a father to me - more than my real father had ever been. I trusted the monk absolutely.  
  
At the end of one long day, busy and tiring, I pulled Damrod's ring off my finger and laid it on my nightstand before I slipped into my bed. My whispered words as I closed my eyes had been repeated so often that they were nearly an incantation, a meditation. Or - considering whom I had to thank for the greater part of my healing - a prayer.  
_  
May your night be blessed, my love. I wish you peace and a healed heart. Think of me with joy and gratitude, as I think of you. I bless the time we were allowed to share together. I will never forget you._

I closed my eyes and slept. And I dreamed...  
  
vvvvv

_I was in a high, bright room, lined with tall windows. I went and looked out, and there was the White City and the undulating green of the Pelennor, stretching toward the horizon. It was clear and cool, sunny, and suddenly I heard voices behind me. I turned around without surprise to see Damrod and Faramir coming through the doorway.  
  
"...and then he sent me another twenty mares!" Faramir was laughing. "Does King Eomer think I have nothing on my mind from morning till night, but horses?"  
  
In the dream I bowed, laughing with them.  
  
"That is because he has nothing else on his own mind, my prince," I said. "And you must not forget Eowyn; she has the same passion for horses."  
  
"As I have reason to know!" Damrod added. "I will never forget how the White Lady sent for my wife, shortly before you son was to be born." He nodded to the prince of Ithilien. "I thought she wanted her on hand to help with the midwifery." He came over to me, kissing my cheek and putting his arm around my waist; I looked down at the strong, brown hand, resting protectively on my visibly rounded belly. The baby gave a strong kick, and Damrod laughed delightedly.  
  
"At last!" he said. "And how vigorous he is!"  
  
"He?" I gazed at him, half-mocking, and he bit his lip, but his eyes laughed.  
  
"You came back home, bursting with pride, and began telling me about the birth. It wasn't until you started talking of "forelegs" and "nostrils" that I realized you had been helping a foal into the world, not a young noble of Ithilien!"  
  
"It was my wife's favorite mare," Faramir explained apologetically. "And now it is time we were going home. Eowyn complains that she can't ride properly in Minas Tirith."  
  
"Time for you, as well," Damrod said, and his hand caressed my belly. "I would like for our child to be born in our own house. Are you feeling well?"  
  
"Of course." I stretched up to kiss his lips. "I have never been better, dearest love."_

vvvvv

I lay in the dark, suddenly wide awake, an odd sensation running through my body. Without thinking I laid both hands across my abdomen, but it was as flat as ever. _Is that how it feels?_ I wondered in amazement. _Is that what it's like to be with child?_ I had made love with Damrod often enough, and I had done nothing to prevent conception. But I had not gotten pregnant, and remembering the dreadful time after my return, I was thankful for that.  
  
But in the dream, I had been carrying his child. I remembered the sudden jolt of movement inside me, and Damrod's hand cupped over my belly, and a shiver ran down my spine.  
  
It had been so vivid. _So real!_ But what did it mean?  
  
Had I seen what would have happened, if I had been able to remain in Middle Earth? Or.._. had I been given a glimpse of something yet to come?  
_  
At that thought I shot out of bed. Days earlier, I had dared to open a book by Tolkien, for the first time since my return. It was a volume of his collected letters, the correspondence of many years. It had been strange to see how he analyzed the story in exchanges with people who wrote to him, looking at it from all sides as if it were no more than a story, however extraordinary.  
  
In one letter I had found an attempt to explain why Frodo had been allowed to sail to the Undying Lands. Tolkien wrote that it had been Arwen who obtained this favor for him.  
_  
Her renunciation and suffering were related to and enmeshed with Frodo's, Tolkien had written. "Both were parts of a plan for the regeneration of the state of Men. Her prayer might therefore be specially effective, and her plan have a certain equity of exchange. No doubt it was Gandalf who was the authority that accepted her plea."(1)_

Gandalf, who meanwhile had left Middle Earth himself, aboard the same ship on which Frodo sailed. The time axis between his world and ours might have been shifted by a few months (I had left Minas Tirith in summer, and upon my return had found myself in winter) but the intervals were the same: I had lived four months in Middle Earth, and I had been gone for four months. By now Frodo was certainly on Tol Eressea, and Gandalf with him.  
  
_Gandalf._ The Maia who had warned me against ripping myself apart for love. Gandalf, the authority, who had granted Arwen's plea to let the Ringbearer take her place on the Elven ship.  
_  
Give us hope_, he had begged me, when he wondered if Frodo's quest had any chance of success._Will Minas Tirith survive to see this victory?_ he had demanded, when Rohan was slow in coming to Gondor's aid.  
  
I took Damrod's ring from the nightstand and slid it on my finger. Going to the window, I pushed it open and stood with the cold night air washing over me, penetrating my thin nightshirt and covering my arms and legs with goosebumps.  
  
_I don't ask to go into the West, Lord._ I spoke softly into the night. _My desire is not that great, and I have done nothing to deserve special grace. But if you could permit a hobbit - no, _three _hobbits! - to set foot on Tol Eressea, can you not persuade the rulers - the One Ruler - of your world, to open Middle Earth to me once more? Oh, please, let me go home!_

I closed my eyes, letting myself feel the depth of my longing, the ache for home and love that had never eased during these long two years of exile, despite my precarious, hard-won peace.  
  
_I beg you, Lord! I gave you hope when you had none. Now give it back to me - let me go home...  
  
And this is not my home anymore.  
  
vvvvv_

_Is this where my tale ends?  
  
I don't know. Perhaps I will never know; perhaps in my old age, my back bowed by the burden of the years, I will still wake each morning from dreams of another world.  
  
I do not know. Reason tells me to be satisfied with what I had, and still have. God knows there are people far more unlucky than I have been. I am healthy, and I have my work. Worthwhile, fulfilling work. And I have precious memories... So many people have none of these things.  
  
But oh, my heart!  
  
My heart is full of images, my heart clings to dreams and is only too ready to take them for prophecies. With the eyes of my heart, I see myself standing in the midst of the Pelennor, the fields healed from the wounds of war and brimming with wheat, white unto harvest. The White City rises before me, its walls gleaming in the sunlight, and from the highest tower flaps the banner of the great king and his kindly, lovely queen.  
  
And somewhere, my love, you are waiting. In the garden of Gondor dwells my beloved, and I am your own, always. My heart still echoes to your voice, and my body aches for the touch of your hands.  
  
I will never stop loving you.  
  
I will never give up hope._

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

(1) From _Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien,_ Letter 246, Footnote 3


	14. Epilogue 1: A Newspaper Article

**Epilogue 1  
  
A newspaper article**

_**The Sabrina Steinenberg Mystery**_

_by Brigitta Schmitz_

The picture hangs in the entrance hall of the Franciscan Hospice, facing the door. It is about fifty centimeters high and forty centimeters wide, painted on canvas, and it shows a woman seated at a desk. Her left hand rests on the desk pad, and the third finger bears a ring of extraordinary beauty. The silver-colored band gleams as if it held light prisoned within, its graceful lines more reminiscent of a vine grown from the earth, than of anything forged of metal. The gem is like green fire; unbelievable that it should be no more than dabs of paint on canvas!  
  
The woman's hair is copper red; a thick plait of it hangs over her shoulder. Her eyes are green, almost too large for her slender face, and a faint smile plays about her mouth. But the lovely eyes are sad, and she has the look of someone who does not smile very often.  
  
"The portrait was painted by one of our nurses," says a voice behind me. Brother Anselm Brauning has come silently into the room, a tall, massive figure in his Franciscan robe. "About six months ago."  
  
The woman in the painting is Sabrina Steinenberg, until two years ago, a regular writer for our newspaper. She wrote good articles, carefully researched, some of them thrilling, others with a good measure of humor. She had no friends that her co-workers knew of - no close friends, anyway; only the casual acquaintances you might have a cup of coffee with, or meet at a party. But Sabrina seldom went to parties. She was a bookworm, friendly but quiet, with a rather ironical wit.  
  
And then, from one day to the next, she vanished without a trace. She made no response to phone calls or emails; it was as if she had ceased to exist. After two months, the editorial office of the newspaper reported her missing; she had no living relatives to do so.  
  
Two months later, she was back. She was admitted to a local sanatorium, near the city; apparently she had been found one night in the park, confused and frightened, with no memory of where she had been during the preceding four months.  
  
In time she recovered, but she never wrote for the newspaper again. A year later she became the subject of gossip for a different reason: without explanation to anyone, she suddenly sold her parents' house and donated the proceeds to the Franciscans for the purchase of their Hospice for the Dying. She had been working there for some time; after the sale of her house, she moved into the Hospice to live.  
  
"She has a good hand with the patients," he tells me. "Reads to them, entertains them with stories. The most anxious relatives seem soothed and comforted by her presence. She has a virtue not often found in these times: she knows how to be quiet, to listen. Sometimes I have had the fancy that she is surrounded by a sort of atmosphere of silence."  
  
When I ask if Sabrina was happy, the monk seems puzzled.  
  
"I really cannot answer that," he says. "I think those lost months two years ago affected her very deeply, left her with a feeling of insecurity. It is easier to say 'yes', if you ask me if she was contented and in balance... during the last year, at any rate."  
  
That I must pose this question to Brother Anselm and not to Sabrina Steinenberg herself, is due to the fact that she has now vanished for the second time. On the evening of September 27th, exactly one week ago, she left the house to take a walk. A nurse whose shift had just ended, who was leaving at the same time, saw Sabrina heading for the park. Brother Anselm says that he waited up for her until midnight; when she had not returned by the following morning, he called the police.  
  
No, she had not been troubled or upset; she was calm and totally normal. Over dinner the night she disappeared, she had joined Brother Anselm and her co-workers in planning the organization of the following day. After the meal the monk left for evening Mass at St. Agnes', and that was the last time he saw Sabrina.  
  
Where was she, during those lost months two years ago? According to medical records at the sanitarium, she never fully regained her memory; she was left with a permanent, mysterious gap in her life.  
  
And where is she now? The police doubt that it is a case of kidnapping; certainly to date nobody has demanded any ransom. Could she have fallen victim to crime? Or did she give in to some sudden impulse, darting off on some journey at a moment's notice, without a word to anyone? But if she did, she went without so much as an overnight bag, for there is nothing missing from her apartment but the clothes she was wearing the night she vanished.  
  
The mystery can be solved only if she returns and gives her own explanation - if indeed she does return for the second time.  
  
_Where is Sabrina Steinenberg?_


	15. Epilogue 2: A Dream of Spring

This was written because by fabulous Beta _jodancingtree_ thought that the first epilogue wasn't enough to explain what happened to my heroine. This second epilogue is for her.

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**Epilogue 2  
  
A dream of Spring**  
  
_December 2003, shortly before christmas_

The first snow of the season has fallen; the wheels of cars driving past the hospice have a muffled sound, and the steady scratching of the janitor's snow shovel on the icy pavement follows the monk as he climbs the stairs to the mansard.  
  
He takes the key to the apartment from the pocket of his robe. Sabrina Steinenberg's former apartment is well-aired, the furniture polished; it is as if the resident had left only recently, for a short journey.  
  
He switches on the reading lamp in the living room and settles into Sabrina's wing chair. The chair is one of the few heirlooms she brought from her parents' house; she told him once how her mother used to sit in it to read her bedtime fairytales.  
  
He never told Sabrina, but he admired her greatly for her ability to let go of the past, to make such a radical change in her life. He watched her closely at first, to make sure that she could cope with such a total chjange in her circumstances... but all he saw was a human being who left behind everything that had become burdensome, devoting herself with a whole heart to a new task, a new life. As far as he could tell, she had never looked back.  
  
Sabrina.  
  
So much courage. So much pain; such great longing...  
  
Not long before her disappearance, she had changed once more. He had always been aware of her yearning for that strange world he knew only from Tolkien's books and from her passionate descriptions. He understood her desire to go back, and during the two years of their friendship he has watched, torn with compassion, as she struggled to accept the fact that it was never to be.  
  
But soon before that fateful, second evening's walk, he saw a new light in her eyes, as if something were changing her opinion. She had an air of unbelieving amazement, and several times he found her in the hospice chapel, totally silent with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes wide open as if she stood before the unexpected solution to an insoluble problem.  
  
He had not asked her to explain; he had been confident that she would confide in him, as she ad done without fail ever since the night he found her in the church at midnight, soaking wet and desperate, at the end of her rope. But this time she did not come to him with her thoughts.  
  
There is a shelf on the wall beside the chair, filled with Tolkien's books, all in a row. The monk takes down the collection of letters; the volume is relatively new, not so worn as the trilogy with its marks of being read and re-read over many years. The book in his hands opens of itself to a page marked with a slip of paper.  
  
It is a letter to Mrs. Eileen Elgar, a long letter dated sometime in 1963, and deals with Frodo and his decisions at Mount Doom, about his way into the West, and there are no less than three footnotes. In the last one a few sentences are underlined lightly in pencil.  
  
_Her renunciation and suffering were related to and enmeshed with Frodo's. Both were parts of a plan for the regeneration of the state of Men. Her prayer might therefore be specially effective, and her plan have a certain equity of exchange. No doubt it was Gandalf who was the authority that accepted her plea._

The monk lets the book sink to his knees, frowning into emptiness. Then he reads the passage a second time, his lips moving soundlessly. At last he leans back with the open book in his lap; for a long time he sits motionless in the warm circle of light from the lamp. The room is silent, no sound but the soft ticking of an antique wall clock. After a while his eyes close and his breath slows. The book slips from his hands and falls unnoticed to the carpet.  
  
_Winter is over... at least in this place, where he finds himself in his dream. He is standing on the bank of a river, its water running high and fast, and flowers bloom beneath the trees: winter aconite and the last snowdrops, wild daffodils... The air is fresh and cool, scented with the new green of springtime.  
  
He backs away from the riverbank, the damp grass soft under his bare feet. Sunlight comes through the interlacing of branches over his head, warming his face, and the new little leaves tremble slightly in the breeze. He walks a little way, and a clearing opens before him; on the other side of it stands a house. He knows he has never seen it in waking life, yet it seems familiar nonetheless.  
  
And now he knows where he is; he knows who lives in this house. There is a sound of rustling behind him, and he steps back among the trees, his heart pounding with -- what? Excitement? Trepidation? The brown of his habit melts into the shadow of the trees.  
  
The woman walks toward him, her red hair loose down her back, her simple gown, just the same pale green as the spring leaves, trailing over the grass. She is enveloped in a loose traveling cloak. When she comes into the clearing and sees the house, she stops abruptly, giving a soft, high cry and instantly muffling it with both hands over her mouth. She takes a few more steps, hesitating, and then Brother Anselm hears the sound of a horse approaching.  
  
He turns in time to see the horse trot into the clearing. The rider is wrapped in a short cloak of dark blue above soft leather breeches and high boots. He dismounts in front of the garden gate and strokes the horse's neck as he guides it into a small stable to one side of the house. For a few moments he is out of sight.  
  
The monk looks back at the woman. Her face is drained of color, but even so it seems to him more vivid than at any time during the two years he has known her. She moves slowly across the clearing toward the stable, one hand held out before her as if she felt her way in a dream. He hears the stable door opening.  
  
The man steps out, ducking his head slightly under the low lintel, and straightens up. His hair falls in dark waves to his shoulders and his face is beautifully shaped, his eyes clear. But the monk has spent long years caring for the souls of men; he sees the marks of deep sorrow around the corners of the mouth and eyes. He knows who this is; he remembers the love and sorrow in her eyes when she spoke of him. Sorrow that mirrored the pain etched in the man's face also.  
  
"Damrod!"  
  
The man freezes, then looks in the direction of the stifled call. His eyes grow wide and he pales; the woman is barely three meters away, her arms stretched out toward him, her face wet with tears. Then, as if some spell of immobility has been broken, he makes four long steps to reach her.  
  
She runs to him, her skirts caught up out of her way; they come together in front of the garden gate and he catches her in his embrace. He touches her cheek, incredulous and gentle; they kiss, and he holds her tight with both arms, as if she might get away again. And the monk watches, standing quietly in the shadows, his smile as warm as the sunlight. Patiently he waits, until at last they draw apart, their hands still clasped, gazing into one another's faces. Hand in hand they turn and walk through the gate, through the garden, to the house. The man opens the door, and closes it behind them._

Brother Anselm wakes with a start. It takes a few minutes before he understands where he is; then he leans down to pick up the book from the floor, and slides it back into its place on the shelf. He switches off the reading lamp and steps over to the window. The chaste coldness has painted the glass with ice flowers, glittering in the light of the street light outside, and fat, soft snowflakes are falling. The monk lets his eyes rest on the peaceful scene, sighing and then smiling: he still carries a warmth inside his heart that lets the impression of the wonderful spring day of his dream linger in his mind.  
  
_"For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you,"(1) _he quotes softly, and the memory of what he has been allowed to see fills him with awe and deep joy, unclouded by any doubt. _"Deo gratias, (2)_ my dear girl. _Deo gratias,_ indeed."  
  
He goes out on the landing and locks the apartment door behind him. Downstairs he passes the Christmas tree in the entrance hall and glances up at Sabrina's portrait with a smile. Under his breath he repeats the words of the man in his dream, when at last he took his beloved by the hand and led her into his house:  
  
"Welcome home, Noerwen."  
  
THE END

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(1)_From the Bible (Old Testament, Isaiah 54, 10)  
  
(2)Thank God_


End file.
